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A LECTURE 



ON 



AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 



INCLUDING A BRIEF OUTLINE 



SLAVE TRADE, EMANCIPATION, 



THE RELATION OF 



THE REPUBLIC OF LIBERIA TO ENGLAND, &C. 



DELIVERED IN THE HALL OF THE 



HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE STATE 01 OHIO. 



By DAVID CHRISTY, 

AGBNT OF THE AMERICAS COLONIZATION SOCIETT. 



CINCINNATI: 
PRINTED BY J. A. & U. P. JAMES. 

1849. 






y 
Columbus, Feb. 2d, 1849. 

The undersigned members of the General Assembly of the State of Ohio, 
desirous of promoting the discussion of the topics connected with a pro- 
vision to be made for the people of color, and that the greatest publicity- 
should be given to the facts and statistics contained in your interesting 
and eloquent Lecture on African Colonization, delivered in the Hall of the 
House ^of Representatives, on the 19th ult., would, respectfully request a 
eopy of the same for publication. 
To DAVID CHRISTY, 

Agent, American Colonization Society. 



i- 






GEO. HARDESTY, 
SAMUEL BIGGER, 
CHAUNCEY N. OLDS, 
SETH WOODFORD, 
R. F. HO WARD, ' 
MILLER PENMNGTON, 
J. HAMBLETON, 
JOHN A. DODDS, 
TANGY JULIEN, 
WM. MORROW, 
JACOB MILLER, 
B. F. LEITER, 
LUTHER MONFORT, 
DAVID KING, 
J. H. DUBBS, 



C. B. GODDARD, 

F. T. BACKUS, 
A. J. BENNET, 
PINKNEY LEWIS, 
J. G. BRESLIN, 
DANIEL BREWER, 
C, P. EDSON, 
ALEX. LONG, 

G. E. PUGH, 
JAS. R. MORRIS, 
S. L. NORRIS, 
WM. DURBIN. 
JAMES M. BURT, 
JAS. H. SMITH, 



HENRY ROEDTER, 
J. R. EMRIE, 
JOHN GRAHAM, 
FISHER A. BLOCKSOM. 
SAML. PATTERSON, 
ISAAC HAINES, 
W. DENNISON, Jun. 
F. COR WIN, 
HARVEY VINAL, 
WM. KENDALL, 
J. S. CONKLIN, 
GEO. D. HENDRICKS. 
JOSHUA JUDY, 
SAMUEL MYERS. 



Oxford, Butleh County, Ohio, Feb. 23d. 

Gentlemen, 

Yours of the 2d inst. is received per mail. I thank you 
for the expression of respect tendered to myself, and the interest which you 
manifest in thecause of which I am the advocate. Your kind invitation to 
me to allow the publication of my Lecture, will afford me the opportunity, 
under the sanction of your names, of spreading before the public the facts 
which it embraces in relation to African Colonization, and may serve, it i9 
hoped, to enlist many new friends to the cause of the young Republic of 
Liberia. I therefore cheerfully comply with your request. 

I have taken the liberty, you will perceive, of adding another section, 
which time did not allow me to present in your hearing, and which was not 
fully matured on the evening in which you did me the honor to allow me 
the use of the Hall. I cannot expect that every one will agree with me in 
all my reasonings and conclusions, but the facts which are presented are of 
such importance that they cannot fail^it is believed, to arrest attention, and 
to lead to further investigation, and ^increased efforts to promote the wel- 
fare of our colored population. 

Yours respectfully, 

DAVID CHRISTY, 

Agt. Am. Col. Soc. for Ohio. 
Messrs. Hardesty, Bigger, Olds, and other?. 



LECTURE 



ON 



AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 



Ever since the fall of man and his expulsion from that Eden of 
bliss, assigned him in his state of innocence, a warfare has been 
waged between good and evil. The conflict has been varied in its 
results, sometimes good and at others evil having the ascendency. 
But why it is that an all-wise, all-powerful, omniscient and infinitely 
benevolent Being should have permitted the introduction of moral evil 
into the world, and in his providence allow its continuance, we 
cannot determine, nor shall we wait to inquire. 

We believe that errors of judgment and opinion, and all evil actions, 
and every form of wickedness and injustice in the world, have their 
origin in the moral depravation of man's nature, and that the contest 
between good and evil will necessarily continue until there shall be a 
moral renovation of his heart. This moral depravation of man's 
nature being general, its effects are universal, and the whole world 
has been but a theater upon which continued developments of its 
workings have been exhibited. 

We believe that God has made provision for man's moral redemp- 
tion, — for creating in him a new heart and renewing a right spirit 
within him — and that the Gospel of Christ is the medium through 
which this blessing flows to mankind. And believing this, we have 
full confidence in the success of all enterprises for the amelioration of 
the condition of mankind, which embrace the Christian religion as the 
basis of their operations. 

The history of African slavery forms one of the darkest pages in 
the catalogue of woes introduced into the world by human depravity. 
Originating on the islands connected with this continent in an error of 
judgment, in a mind actuated by motives of benevolence, it has been 
productive of an accumulation of human suffering which affords a most 
painful illustration of the want of foresight in man, and the immensity 
of the evils which misguided philanthropy may inflict upon our race. 

In attempting to bring up in review this enormous evil in its origin 
and various aspects, as connected with colonization, the subject 
naturally divides itself into the following heads: 



4 The Slave Trade. 

I. The origin of the slave trade, with the efforts made for its 

suppression. 

II. The measures adopted at an early day for the emancipation of 

the slaves introduced into the United States, with the results. 

III. The provision to be made for the people of color when liber- 
ated. 

IV. The practicability of colonizing the free colored people of the 
United States. 

V. The effects of colonization on the native Africans, and upon 

the missionary efforts in Africa. 

VI. The certainty of success of the colonization scheme, and of 
the perpetuity of the Republic of Liberia. 

I. A Portuguese exploring expedition was in progress, in 1434, 
along the west coast of Africa, having in view the double object of 
conquering the Infidels and finding a passage by sea to India. Under 
the sanction of a bull of Pope Martin V, they had granted to them 
the right to all the territories they might discover, and a plenary 
indulgence to the souls of all who might perish in the enterprise, and 
in recovering those regions to Christ and his church. Anthony 
Gonzales, an officer of this expedition, received, at Rio del Oro, on 
the coast of Africa, in 1442, ten negro slaves and some gold dust in 
exchange for several Moorish captives, which he held in custody. 
On his return to Lisbon, the avarice of his countrymen was awakened 
by his success, and in a few years thirty ships were fitted out in 
pursuit of this gainful traffic. These incipient steps in the slave 
trade having been taken, it was continued by private adventurers until 
1481, when the King of Portugal took the title of Lord of Guinea, 
and erected many forts on the African coast to protect himself in this 
iniquitous warfare upon human rights. 

Soon after the settlement of the first colony in St. Domingo, in 
1493, the licentiousness, rapacity and insolence of the Spaniards 
exasperated the native Indians, and a war breaking out between them, 
the latter were subdued and reduced to slavery. But as the avarice 
of the Spaniards was too rapacious and impatient to try any method 
of acquiring wealth but that of searching for gold, this servitude soon 
became as grievous as it was unjust. The Indians were driven in 
crowds to the mountains, and compelled to work in the mines by 
masters who imposed their tasks without mercy or discretion. Labor 
so disproportioned to their strength and former habits of life wasted 
that feeble race so rapidly, that in fifteen years their numbers were 
reduced, by the original war and subsequent slavery, from a million 
to sixty thousand. 

This enormous injustice awakened the sympathies of benevolent 
hearts, and great efforts were made by the Dominican missionaries to 
rescue the Indians from such cruel oppression. At length Las Casas 
espoused their cause; but his eloquence and all his efforts, both in the 
Island and in Spain, were unavailing. The impossibility, as it was 
supposed, of carrying on any improvements in America, and securing 



The Slave Trade. 5 

to the crown of Spain the expected annual revenue of gold, unless 
the Spaniards could command the labor of the natives, was an in- 
superable objection to his plan of treating them as free subjects. 

To remove this obstacle, without which it was in vain to mention 
his scheme, Las Casas proposed to purchase a sufficient number of 
Negroes, from the Portuguese settlements on the coast of Africa, to 
be employed as substitutes for the Indians. Unfortunately for the 
children of Africa, this plan of Las Casas was adopted. As early as 
1503, a few Negro slaves had been sent into St. Domingo, and in 
1511, Ferdinand had permitted them to be imported in great numbers. 
The labor of one African was found to be equal to that of four 
Indians. But Cardinal Ximenes, acting as Regent from the death of 
Ferdinand to the accession of Charles, peremptorily refused to allow 
of their further introduction. Charles, however, on arriving in Spain, 
granted the prayer of Las Casas, and bestowed upon one of his 
Flemish friends the monopoly of supplying the colonies with slaves. 
This favorite sold his right to some Genoese merchants, 1518, and 
they brought the traffic in slaves, between Africa and America, into 
that regular form which has been continued to the present time. 

Thus, through motives of benevolence toward the poor oppressed 
native Indians of St. Domingo, did the mistaken philanthropy of a 
good man, co-operating with the avarice of the Christian world, entail 
perpetual chains and inflict unutterable woes upon the sons of Africa. 

This new market for slaves having been thus ereated, the nations 
of Europe were soon found treating with each other for the extension 
of the slave trade. 'The Genoese,' as already stated, 'had, at first, 
the monopoly of this new branch of commerce. The French next 
obtained it, and kept it until it yielded them, according to Spanish 
official accounts, the sum of $204,000,000. In 1713 the English 
secured it for thirty years.' But Spain, in 1739, purchased the 
British right for the remaining four years, by the payment of $500, 
000. The Dutch also participated to some extent in the traffic. 

The North American Colonies did hot long escape the introduction 
of this curse. As early as 1620. slaves were introduced by a Dutch 
vessel, which sailed up the James river, and sold her cargo. From 
that period a few slaves were introduced into North America from 
year to year, until the beginning of the 18th century, when Great 
Britain, having secured the monopoly of the slave trade, as before 
mentioned, prosecuted it with great activity, and made her own 
Colonies the principal mart for the victims of her avarice. But her 
North American Colonies made a vigorous opposition to their intro- 
duction. The mother country, however, finding her commercial 
interests greatly advanced by this traffic, refused to listen to their re- 
monstrances, or to sanction their legislative prohibitions. 

But in addition to the commercial motive which controlled the 
actions of England, another, still more potent, was disclosed in the 
declaration of the Earl of Dartmouth, in 1777, when he declared, as 
a reason for forcing the Africans upon the Colonies, that " Negroes 
eannot become Republicans : — they will be a power in our hands to 



6 The Slave Trade. 

restrain the unruly Colonists." The success which a kind provi- 
dence granted to the arras of the Colonists, in their struggle for in- 
dependence, however, soon enabled them to control this evil, and 
ultimately to expel it from our coasts. 

In consequence of citizens of the Colonies being involved in the 
traffic, in the adoption of the Constitution the period for the termina- 
tion of the slave trade was prolonged until January, 1808. But 
Congress, in anticipation, passed a law, on March 3d, 1807, prohibit- 
ing the fitting out of any vessels for the slave trade after that date, 
and forbidding the importation of any slaves after January, 1808, 
under the penalty of imprisonment from five to ten years, a fine of 
$20,000, and the forfeiture of the vessels employed therein. This 
act also authorized the President of the United States to employ 
armed vessels to cruise on the coasts of Africa and the United States 
to prevent infractions of the law. 

On the 3d of March, 1819, another act was passed, re-affirming 
the former act, and authorizing the President to make provision for 
the safe-keeping and support of all recaptured Africans, and for their 
return to Africa. This movement was prompted by the exertions of 
the American Colonization Society, which had been organized on 
the first of January, 1817, and embraced among its members many 
of the most influential men in the nation. 

On the first of March, preceding the passage of this act, a 
gentleman from Virginia offered a resolution in the House of Repre- 
sentatives, which was passed without a division, declaring that every 
person who should import any slave, or purchase one so imported, 
should be punished with death. This incident reveals to us, in a 
very unequivocal manner, the state of public sentiment at that time. 

In the following year, 1820, Congress gave the crowning act to her 
legislation upon this subject, by the passage of the law declaring the 
slave trade piracy. This decisive measure, the first of the kind 
among nations, and which stamped the slave trade with deserved 
infamy, it should be remembered, was recommended by a committee 
of the House in a Report founded on a memorial of the Colonization 
Society. Thus terminated the legislative measures adopted by our 
Government for the suppression of the slave trade. 

We shall now turn to Great Britain, the most extensive participator 
in this iniquitous traffic, and ascertain the success of the measures 
adopted for its suppression in that direction. 

Through the efforts of Wilbei force and his co-adjutors, the British 
Parliament passed an act in 1806, which was to take effect in 1808, 
by which the slave trade was forever prohibited to her West India 
Colonies. But the want of wisdom and foresight involved in the 
measures adopted to accomplish this great work, soon became mani- 
fest. Had Great Britain prevailed upon or compelled Portugal and 
Spain to unite with her, the annihilation of the slave trade might 
have been effected. The traffic being abandoned by England, and 
left free to all others, was continued under the flags of Portugal and 
Spain, and their tropical colonies soon received such large accessions 



The Slave Trade. 7 

of slaves, as to enable them to begin to rival Great Britain in the 
supply of tropical products to the markets of the world. 

But the philanthropic Wilberforce persevered in his efforts, and, 
after a struggle of thirty years, succeeded in procuring the passage of 
the Act of Parliament, in 1824, declaring the slave trade piracy. 
This was four years after the passage of the Act of our Congress 
which declared it piracy, and subjected those engaged therein to the 
penalty of death. 

This decisive action of the two Governments was hailed with joy 
by the philanthropists of the world, and their efforts were now put 
forth to influence all the other Christian powers to unite in the sup- 
pression of this horrible traffic. Their exertions were ultimately 
crowned with success, and their joy was unbounded. England, 
France, the United States, and the other Christian powers, not only 
declared it piracy, but agreed to employ an armed force for its sup- 
pression. This engagement, however, was not carried out by all of 
the Governments who had assented to the proposition; yet, still, the 
hope was confidently entertained that the day for the destruction of 
the slave trade had come, and that this reproach of Christian nations 
would be blotted out for ever. 

But, alas, how short-sighted is man, and how futile, often, his 
greatest efforts to do good. The vanity of human wisdom and the 
utter imbecility of human legislation, in the removal of moral evil, 
was never more signally shown than in this grand struggle for the 
suppression of the slave trade. Instead of having been checked and 
suppressed, and the demons in human form who carried it on having 
been deterred from continuing the traffic by the dread penalty of death, 
as was confidently anticipated, it has gone on increasing in extent and 
with an accumulation of horrors that surpass belief. A glance at its 
history proves this but too fully, and shows that the warfare between 
good and evil is one of no ordinary magnitude. 

Edwards, the historian of the West Indies, states, that the import- 
ation of slaves from Africa, in British vessels, from 1680 to 1786, 
averaged 20,000 annually. In 1792, Mr. Fox and Mr. Pitt both 
agreed in estimating the numbers torn from Africa at 80,000 per 
annum. From 1798 to 1810, recent English Parliamentary docu- 
ments show the numbers exported from Africa to have averaged 85, 
000 per annum, and the mortality during the voyage to have baen 
14 per cent. From 1810 to 1815 the same documents present an 
average of 93,000 per annum, and the loss during the middle passage 
to have equalled that of the preceding period. From 1815 to 1819 
the export of slaves had increased to 106,000 annually, and the 
mortality during the voyage to 25 per cent. 

Here, then, is brought to view the extent of the evil which called 
for such energetic action, and which, it was hoped, could be easily 
crushed by legislation. Let us now look forward to the results. 

While the slave trade was sanctioned by law, its extent could be as 
easily ascertained as that of any other branch of commerce; but after 
that period, the estimates of its extent are only approximations. 



8 The Slave Trade. 

The late Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton devoted himself with un- 
wearied industry to the investigation of the extent and enormities of the 
foreign slave trade. His labors extended through many years, and 
the results, as published in 1840, sent a thrill of horror throughout 
the Christian world. He proved, conclusively, that the victims to 
the slave trade, in Africa, amounted annually to 500,000. This 
included the numbers who perish in the seizure of the victims, in the 
wars of the natives upon each other, and the deaths during their 
march to the coast and the detention there before embarkation. This 
loss he estimates at one half, or 500 out of every 1000. The destruc- 
tion of life during the middle passage he estimates at 25 per cent., or 
125 out of the remaining 500 of the original thousand. The mortal- 
ity after landing and in seasoning he shows is 20 per cent, or one-fifth 
of the 375 survivors. Thus he proves that the number of lives 
sacrificed by the system, bears to the number of slaves available to 
the planter, the proportion of seven to three — that is to say, for every 
300 slaves landed and sold in the market, 700 have fallen victims to 
the deprivations and cruelties connected with the traffic. 

The parliamentary documents above referred to vary but little from 
the estimates of Mr. Buxton, excepting that they do not compute the 
number of victims destroyed in Africa in their seizure and transporta- 
tion to the coast. The following table, extracted from these docu- 
ments, presents the average number of slaves exported from Africa to 
America, and sold chiefly in Brazil and Cuba, with the per cent, 
amount of loss in the periods designated. 

• Annual aver- 
Dates age number 

, exported. 

1798 to 1805 85,000 

1805 to 1810 85,000 

1810 to 1815 93,000 

1815 to 1817 106,000 

1817 to 1819 106,000 

1819 to 1825 103,000 

1825 to 1830 125,000 

1830 to 1835 78,500 

1835 to 1840 135,800 

This enormous increase of the slave trade, it must be remembered, 
had taken place during the period of vigorous efforts for its suppres- 
sion. England, alone, according to McQueen, had expended for this 
object, up to 1842, in the employment of a naval force on the coast of 
Africa, the sum of $88,888,888, and he estimated the annual expen- 
diture at that time at $2,500,000. But it has been increased since 
that period to $3,000,000 a year, making the total expenditure of 
Great Britain, for the suppression of the slave trade, at the close of 
1848, more than one hundred millions of dollars ! France and the 
United States have also expended a large amount for this object. 

The disclosures of Mr. Buxton produced a profound sensation 
throughout England, and the conviction was forced upon the public 
mind, and " upon Her Majesty's confidential advisers," that the 



Average casualties 


during 


the voyage. 


Per Ct. 


Amount. 


14 


12,000 


14 


12,000 


14 


13,000 


25 


26,600 


25 


26,600 


25 


25,800 


25 


31,000 


25 


19,600 


25 


33,900 



The Slave Trade. 9 

slave trade could not be suppressed by physical force, and that it 
was " indispensable to enter upon some new preventive system 
calculated to arrest the foreign slave trade." 

The remedy proposed and attempted to be carried out, was " the 
deliverance of Africa by calling forth her own resources." 

To accomplish this great work, the capitalists of England were to 
set on foot agricultural companies, who, under the protection of the 
Government, should obtain lands by treaty with the natives, and 
employ them in its tillage, — to send out trading ships and open 
factories at the most commanding positions, — to increase and con- 
centrate the English naval force on the coast, and to make treaties 
with the chiefs of the coast, the rivers and the interior. These 
measures adopted, the companies formed were to call to their aid 
a race of teachers of African blood, from Sierra Leone and the West 
Indies, who should labor with the whites in diffusing intelligence, in 
imparting religious instruction, in teaching agriculture, in establishing 
and encouraging legitimate commerce, and in impeding and suppress- 
ing the slave trade. In conformity with these views and aims, the 
African Civilization Society was formed, and the Government fitted 
out three large iron steamers, at an expense of $300,000, for the use 
of the company. 

Mr. McQueen, who had for more than twenty years devoted him- 
self to the consideration of Africa's redemption and Britain's glory, 
and who had become the most perfect master of African geography 
and African resources, also appealed to the Government, and urged 
the adoption of measures for making all Africa a dependency of 
the British Empire. Speaking of what England had already accom- 
plished, and of what she could yet achieve, he exclaims : 

"Unfold the map of the world: We command the Ganges. 
Fortified at Bombay, the Indus is our own. Possessed of the islands 
in the mouth of the Persian Gulf, we command the outlets of Persia 
and the mouths of the Euphrates, and consequently of countries the 
cradle of the human race. We command at the Cape of Good 
Hope. Gibraltar and Malta belonging to us, we control the Mediter- 
ranean. Let us plant the British standard on the island of Socatora 
— upon the island of Fernando Po, and inland upon the banks of the 
Niger ; and then we may say Asia and Africa, for all their productions 
and all their wants, are under our control. It is in our power. 
Nothing can prevent us." 

But Providence rebuked this proud boast. The African Civilization 
Society commenced its labors under circumstances the most favorable 
for success. Its list of members embraced many of the noblest 
names of the kingdom. Men of science and intelligence embarked 
in it, and, when the expedition set sail, a shout of joy arose and a 
prayer for success ascended from ten thousand philanthropic English 
voices. 

But this magnificent scheme, fraught with untold blessings to Africa, 
and destined, it was believed, not only to regenerate her speedily, 
but to produce a revenue of unnumbered millions of dollars to the 



10 The Slave Trade. 

stockholders, proved an utter failure. The African climate, that 
deadly foe to the white man, blighted the enterprise. In a few 
months, disease and death had so far reduced the numbers of the 
men connected with the expedition, that the enterprise was abandon- 
ed, and the only evidence of its ever having ascended the Niger 
exists in its model farm left in the care of a Liberian. 

This result, however, had been anticipated by many of the judicious 
Englishmen who had not suffered their enthusiasm to overcome their 
judgments, but who had opposed it as wild and visionary in the 
extreme, on account of the known fatality of the climate to white 
men. 

Thus did the last direct effort of England for the redemption of 
Africa prove abortive. The slave trade has still been prosecuted 
with little abatement, and for the last few years with an alarming 
increase. The statistics in the parliamentary Report, before quoted, 
and from which we have extracted the table exhibiting the extent of 
the slave trade between Africa and America, down to 1839, also 
present the following table, including the numbers exported from 
Africa to America, from 1840 to 1847 inclusive, with the per cent, of 
loss in the middle passage and the amount.* It is as follows : 



Years. 


Number?. 


Loss. 








Per Cent. 


Amount. 


1840 


64,114 


25 


16,068 


1841 


43,097 


25 


11,274 


1842 


28,400 


25 


7,100 


1843 


55,062 


25 


13,765 


1844 


54,102 


25 


13,525 


1845 


36,758 


25 


9,189 


1846 


76,117 


25 


19,029 


1847 


84,356 


25 


21,089 



Here, then, we have the melancholy truth forced upon us, that the 
slave trade was carried on as actively in 1847 as from 1798, to 1810; 
while the destruction of life during the middle passage has been 
increased from 14 percent, to 25; and that while the vigorous means 
used to suppress the traffic, during these fifty years, have failed of 
this end, they have greatly aggravated its horrors. 

And such was the conviction of the total inadequacy of the means 
which had been employed by the British Government to check or 
suppress the evil, that the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, 
at the close of the year 1847, after declaring that the slave trade was 
then more actively and systematically prosecuted than for many 
years, and that its horrors had been greatly increased, urged upon the 
Government, from motives of humanity, the suspension of all 
physical force, and the repeal of all laws inflicting penalties upon 

* There is some discrepancy in the authorities from which we quote the figures. 
We have not had access to the original document. One of our authorities gives the 
whole number of these exports from Africa to Brazil, and a proportional number to 
Cuba. This would greatly increase all our estimates based upon the figures of this 
table. 



. The Slave Trade. 11 

those engaged in the traffic. It was proved that the slave traders, 
when closely pursued by vessels of war, often hid the evidences of 
their guilt, when favored by the darkness of the night, by burying the 
slaves with which they were freighted in the depths of the ocean; or 
by persevering in refusing to surrender, force the pursuing vessels 
to continue firing into them, and thus endanger and destroy the inno- 
cent victims crowded between the decks of their vessels. It was also 
urged that the African Civilization Society be revived, but that, instead 
of white men, the emigrants be taken from the better educated and 
more enlightened of the West India colored population. By the 
adoption of this course, and the civilization of the Africans along the 
coast, they hope to seal the fountain whence the evil flows. 

This brief outline of the slave trade, and of the efforts made by 
Great Britain fur its suppression, and the utter failure of the measures 
which she had adopted to accomplish that object, prove, conclusively, 
two points which American philanthropists had lor years urged as 
settled truths, viz : 

1. That the planting and building up of Christian Colonies on 
the coast of Africa, is the only practical remedy for the slave trade. 

2. That colored men only can, with safety, settle upon the 
African Coast. 

And so fully has the British Government now become convinced 
of the truth of these propositions, that Lord Palmerston not only has 
placed a naval force at the disposal of the President of Liberia for 
the suppression of the slave trade on territory recently purchased, 
where the slave traders refused to leave, but has, in connection with 
others, offered ample pecuniary means to purchase the whole territory 
between Sierra Leone and Liberia, now infested by those traffickers 
in human flesh, with the view of annexing it to the little Republic, 
and thus rescuing it from their hands. 

By this act, Englishmen have acknowledged the superiority of our 
scheme of African redemption over that of the philanthropists of 
Britain, and have thus given assurances to the world that their plan 
of making Africa a dependency of the British Crown has been 
abandoned, and that a change of policy toward our colony has been 
adopted. All their own schemes in relation to Africa having failed, 
they are constrained to acknowledge the wisdom and success of ours, 
and are the first to avail themselves of the commercial advantages 
afforded to the world by the creation of the Republic of Liberia. 

But we shall, under another head, revert again to this subject, and 
present some facts which may serve to explain the course of England 
in her sudden expression of friendship and sympathy for our Colony. 

II. The efforts made, at an early day, for the emancipation of the 
slaves in the United States, with the results. 

On this important question there was not the same unanimity of 
sentiment which had prevailed upon that of the slave trade. The 
love of ease, the prospect of gain, the fear that so large a body of 
ignorant men would be dangerous to the public peace, and many 



12 Emancipation of Slaves in the United States. 

other considerations, influenced the minds of a large number to 
oppose the liberation of the slaves. But, notwithstanding this oppo- 
sition, the work progressed, until Acts of Emancipation were carried 
through the Legislatures of all the States north of Delaware, Mary- 
land and Virginia. Nor was this good work confined to the States 
which were engaged in legislative enactments for emancipation. The 
feelings of humanity which dictated the liberation of the slave in the 
northern States, pervaded the minds of good men in the southern 
States also. 

The full extent of the emancipations in the slave States cannot be 
accurately ascertained. The census tables, however, supply sufficient 
testimony on this point to enable us to reach a close approximation 
to the true number which have been liberated since 1790, when the 
first census of the United States was taken. 

The following table gives the number of free colored people in 
1790, with the number in all the subsequent periods up to 1840, and 
the increase in each ten years, together with the increase per 
cent, per annum. 



Table shoiving the number of the Free colored population of the 
United States. 



YEARS. 



Total number 
Actual increase 
Increase per cent, 
per annum 



1790 


1800 


1810 


1820 


1830 

3T9~,599 

81,402 

3.41 + 


59,466 


108,398 
48,932 

8.22+ 


186,446 

78,048 

7.20+ 


238,197 
51,751 

2.77+ 



1840 

386\235 

66,636 

2.08+ 



In 1790 the feeling in favor of emancipation, it will be seen, had 
given us a free colored population of nearly 60,000 persons. What 
proportion of these were free-born cannot be determined, but it would 
probably not exceed one-half. 

r The number of slaves in the free States, in 1790, and the decrease 
in each period, up to 1840, with the annual decrease per cent, was 
as follows : 

II. 

Table exhibiting the number of Slaves in the Free States from 

1790 to 1840. 



YEARS. 


1790 


1800 
35,803 
4,409 

1.23+ 


1810 


1820 


1830 


1840 


Total number 
Actual decrease 
Decrease per cent, 
per annum 


40,212 


27,181 
8,622 

3.17+ 


18,001 
9,180 

5.04+ 


2,774 
3 15,227 

18.88 + 


764 
2,010 

26.30+ 



The decrease of the slaves in the free States, after 1790, is not 
greater than the deaths in a population of such a class of persons. 

* By a law of New York 10,000 slaves were emancipated in one day in 1827, thus 
decreasing the number of slaves, and increasing the free colored, as stated in this 
table. 



Emancipation of Slaves in the United Stales. 



13 



Pennsylvania passed her emancipation act in 1780, and the other 
states soon afterward followed her example, but at what periods we 
are not at present informed.* It is probable that the free colored 
population was not increased by emancipations of the slaves remain- 
ing in the free states after 1790, because, as before stated, the decrease 
of these slaves did not exceed the mortality, excepting in 1827, when 
New York liberated all hers then remaining in bondage. Any in- 
crease of the free colored population, therefore, over their natural 
increase will have been produced by emancipations in the slave 
states. 

The following table, taken in connection with table I, shows, that 
from 1830 to 1840 the increase of the free colored population was 
reduced to but a very small fraction over two per cent, per annum. 
Two per cent, per annum, therefore, may be taken as the ratio of 
the natural increase of the free colored population. The excess 
over two per cent. must, then, have been derived from emancipations. 

III. 
Rate per cent, per annum of increase of Population of the United 

States. 



Years. 


Whites. 


Free colored 


Siaves. 


Free colored 
and Slaves. 


All 
combined. 


1790 to 1800 


3.56 


8.22 


2.79 


3.22 


3.50 


1800 to 1810 


3.61 


7.20 


3.34 


3.75 


3.64 


1810 to >8"20 


3.43 


2.77 


2.95 


2.93 


3.33 


1820 to 1830 


3.38 


3.41 


3.01 


3.06 


3.32 


1830 to 1840 


3.46 


2.08 


2.32 


2.33 


3.26 


Average 


3.48 


4.73 


2.88 


3.06 


3.41 



"* Adopting this rule of computation, we find that the emancipations 
in the slave states, from 1790 to 1830, must have been 131,700. If 
to this we add one-half of the number who were free in 1790, or 
30,000, it makes the total emancipations up to 1830 amount to 161, 
700. The extent of the pecuniary sacrifice made to the cause of 
emancipation by benevolent men involved in slavery, will be better 
understood by estimating the number emancipated at $350 each, 
which gives a product of $56,595,000. This estimated value is low 
enough. 

To this sum, however, should be added the number of slaves 
emancipated and sent to Liberia, which, up to 1843, amounted to 
2,290. If to these are added the emancipated slaves sent out to 

* We find the following statement in relation to the number of slaves in the United 
States at an earlier period, in a religious periodical. At the time of the Declaration 
of Independence, in 1776, the whole number of slaves was estimated at 500,000, viz. 



Massachusetts, 
Rhode Island, 
Connecticut, 
New Hampshire, 
New York. 
New Jersey, 
Pennsylvania, 



3,500 

4,373 

6,000 

629 

15,000 
7,600 

10,000 



Delaware, 
Maryland, 
Virginia, 
N. Carolina, 
S. Carolina, 
Georgia, 

Total, 



9,000 
80,000 
16,500 
75,000 

110,000 
16,000 

502,133 



14 Emancipation of Slaves in the United States. 

Africa since that period, the number of which we cannot at present as- 
ceitain, we shall have more than another million of dollars to add to the 
above sum, thus making the amount sacrificed to the cause of eman- 
cipation but little short of Jiffy-eight millions of dollars. 

But in granting the slave his freedom, it seemed to be decided by- 
common consent, that the British statesman was right in asserting 
that Negroes could not become Republicans. The right of suffrage 
was not extended to them. The stimulus of entering into competition 
for the highest posts of honor was not afforded to the man of color to 
prompt him to great mental effort. Able to find employment only in the 
more menial occupations, his opportunities for intellectual advancement 
were poor, and his prospects of moral improvement still more gloomy. 
These results of emancipation in the northern states were watched 
with great interest by the philanthropic citizens of the slave states. 
The liberation of the slaves in the free states had fallen so far short 
of securing the amount of good anticipated, that the friends of the 
colored man became less urgent and zealous in their efforts to secure 
further legislative action, while the opponent of the measure was 
furnished with a new argument to sustain him in his course of hostil- 
ity to emancipation, and was soon able to secure the passage of laws 
for its prohibition, under the specious plea that a large increase of the 
free colored population by emancipation could not be productive of 
o-ood either to themselves or to the whites. 

That some powerful cause operated in checking emancipations 
after 1810, and that it again received a new impulse from 1820 to 
1830, is undeniable. The number emancipated in the slave states, 
during the several periods, as is determined by the rule before adopted, 
was as follows : 

1790 to 1800 emancipations were 37,042 
1800 to 1810 " " 56,414 

1810 to 1820 " " 14,471 

1820 to 1830 « " 33,772* 

1830 to 1840 " " 000 

From 1790 to 1810 some of the most powerful minds in the 
nation were directed to the consideration of the enormous evils of 
slavery, and the effects of their labors are exhibited in the number of 
emancipations made during that period. The decline of emancipa- 
tions after 1810, we believe to be due to the cause assigned above — 
the little benefit, apparently, which had resulted from the liberation 
of the slaves, and the consequent relaxation of effort by the friends of 
emancipation. 

The impulse given to emancipation between 1820 and 1S30, it is 
believed, was caused by the favorable influences exerted by the 
Colonization Society, which enjoyed a great degree of popularity 
during this period. But from 1830 to 1840, the period when the 
Society had the fewest friends, the increase of the free colored 

*The 10,000 emancipated in New York being deducted, will leave 23,7?2 in this 
period. 



Emancipation of Slaves in the United Slates. 15 

population was reduced to only two per cent, per annum, showing 
that emancipations must have nearly ceased, or that the deaths among 
our free colored people are so nearly equal to the births, that some 
decisive measures are demanded, by considerations of humanity, to 
place them under circumstances more favorable than they at present 
enjoy. 

It may be well in this place to call attention to the fact, that while 
the natural increase of our free colored population cannot exceed two 
per cent, per annum, that of the slaves, notwithstanding the numerous 
emancipations, has been three per cent, per annum, excepting in the 
first period, when the disparity in the sexes produced by the slave 
trade might produce a greater mortality than would afterward occur ; 
and iu the last period, between 1830 and 1840, during which the 
great revulsions in business, producing an immense number of bank- 
ruptcies in the south, caused thousands of embarrassed debtors to 
remove their slaves to Texas, beyond the reach of their creditors. 
The slaves thus removed, not being included in the census of 1840, 
caused a reduction in the ratio of our slave increase. See table III. 

Thus we find, that in the earlier periods of our history, the 
promptings of philanthropy and the influence of Christian principle 
produced a public sentiment which controlled legislation, and broke 
the chain of the slave. And where legislation failed, it operated with 
equal power on the hearts of men, and produced the same salutary 
effects. But while emancipation was found to have produced to the 
white man the richest fruits, it was observed, with painful feelings, 
that to the colored man it had been productive of little else than the 
"Apples of Sodom." 

These results of emancipation led to anxious inquiries in relation 
to the disposal of the free colored population. It was all-important, 
in the judgment of the friends of the colored man, that he should be 
placed under circumstances where the degradation of centuries might 
be forgotten, and where he might become an honor to his race and a 
benefactor to the world. The conviction forced itself upon their 
minds, that a separate political organization — a Government of 
his otvn, where he would be free in fact as well as in name — was 
the only means by which they could fully discharge the debt due to 
him, and place him in a position where his prospects of advancement 
would be based upon a sure foundation. 

These remarks bring us to the consideration of the third branch 
of our subject. 

III. The provision to be made for the people of color when 
liberated. 

A separate political organization was decided upon, and Coloniza- 
tion, at a distant point, beyond the influence of the whites, considered 
the only means of future security to the colored man. To select the 
field for the founding of the future African Empire was not such an 
easy task. The history of the Indian tribes had proved, but too 
forcibly, that an establishment upon the territory of the United States 



16 Colonization to Liberia. 

would soon become unsafe, in consequence of the rapid and universal 
extension of the white population. The unsettled state of the South 
American Republics was considered as offering still less security. 
Europe had no room for them, nor desire to possess them. England 
had already removed those cast upon herself and her Canadian pos- 
sessions, by the casualties of war, back again to Africa, and founded 
her Colony of Sierra Leone. The only remaining point was Africa. 
Its western coast was of most easy access, being but little further from 
us than Havre or Liverpool. The condition of its native population 
offered many obstacles to the establishment of a colony. But the 
inducements to select it as the field of the enterprise in contempla- 
tion were also many. It was the land of the fathers of those who 
were to emigrate. It was deeply sunk in both moral and intellectual 
darkness. The lowest rites of Pagan worship were widely practised. 
Human sacrifices extensively prevailed, and even cannibalism often 
added its horrors to fill up the picture of its dismal degradation. 
And, as though the Spirit of Evil had resolved on concentrating in 
one point all the enormities that could be invented by the fiends of 
the nether pit, the slave trade was added to the catalogue, to stimulate 
the worst passions of the human heart, and produce developments 
of wickedness and of cruelty, at the bare recital of which humanity 
shudders. Except at a few points, no ray of moral light, to guide to 
a blissful eternity, had yet penetrated the more than midnight moral 
darkness which had for ages shrouded the land. The deadly influ- 
ence of the climate, together with the interference of the slave trade, 
had hitherto defeated the success of missionary effort, and there 
seemed to be no hope for the moral renovation of Africa but through 
the agency of men of African blood, whose constitutions could be- 
come adapted to the climate, and who could thus gain a foothold upon 
the continent, repel the slave traders, and introduce civilization and 
the gospel. 

Here, then, was a field for the action of the freed-men of the United 
States. Here was a theater upon which to exhibit before the world 
the capacities of the colored race. Here, too, could be solved the 
problem of the value of the republican form of government. And, 
above all, here could be fully tested the regenerating, the elevating, 
and the humanizing power of the gospel of Christ. 

In commencing the settlement of a colony of colored persons on 
the coast of Africa, two objects were to be accomplished : 

1. To improve the condition of the free colored people of the 
United States. 

2. To civilize and christianize Africa. 

To these objects the friends of the colored man devoted themselves. 
The first emigrants were sent out in 1820. The pecuniary means 
of the society were never very great, and its progress in sending out 
emigrants and in building up the colony has necessarily been slow. 
From the first it met with violent opposition from the slave traders on 
the coast of Africa, who, by creating the impression upon the minds 
of the natives that the colonists would prevent their further connection 



Colonization to Liberia. 17 

with the slave trade, and thus cut off their chief source of acquiring 
wealth, inflamed the minds of the chiefs, and prompted them to make 
war upon the colonists. Soon after the settlement of the colony, the 
native warriors, one thousand strong, attacked the emigrants, who 
numbered but thirty-five effective men. But a kind Providence 
shielded them from the infuriated savages who assailed them, and 
enabled that handful of men to defeat their foes, in two successive 
assaults, separated from each other by several weeks of time, and, 
finally, to establish themselves in peace in all their borders. 

Additional emigrants, from year to year, were sent out. Mission- 
aries labored, with more or less faithfulness, in establishing schools 
and in preaching the gospel. The natives, in a few years, became 
convinced that the colonists were their true friends, and that the 
adoption of civilized habits would secure to them greater comforts 
than could be obtained by a continuation of the slave trade. Their 
children were sent to school with those of the colonists. A moral 
renovation commenced and progressed until, in the course of twenty- 
six years from the landing of the first emigrants at Monrovia, the 
colony attained a condition of strength warranting its erection into an 
Independent Republic. Accordingly, in July, 1847, its independence 
was declared, and a population of 80,000 adopted the constitution and 
laws and became members of the Republic. Its newly-elected 
President, J. J. Roberts, a man of color, in his recent visit to 
England, France and Germany, was treated with great respect, and 
found no difficulty in securing the acknowledgment of the indepen- 
dence of the Republic of Liberia by the two former governments. 

But it may be said, that, after all, but little has been done, compared 
with the means expended, in this effort to make provision for the 
free colored people, and for the introduction of a Christian civilization 
into Africa. A more striking view of the results will be brought out 
by contrasting the products of the labors of the American Coloniza- 
tion Society with some of the other efforts which have been made to 
rescue Africa from the wrongs inflicted upon her. 

England, mighty in power, and possessing the means of executing 
magnificent enterprises, has expended, as already stated, more than 
one hundred millions of dollars for the suppression of the slave trade 
and the civilization of Africa. But her labors and her treasures have 
been spent in vain. Her gold might better have been sunk in the 
ocean. The monster, hydra-like, when smitten and one head sever- 
ed from the body, has constantly reproduced two in its place ; and, at 
this moment, as before shown, it is prosecuted with greater activity 
than for many years. 

It must be remembered that these efforts of Great Britain have 
been made during the period of the existence of the American Col 
onization Society, and in seeming contempt of its pigmy efforts. For 
years previous to the independence of Liberia, and while England 
was aiming at making Africa a dependency of her Crown, she, on 
several occasions, manifested a disposition to cripple the energies of 
our colony. And so extensive were the agencies she seems to have 

2 



18 Colonization to Liberia. 

employed, that it is now matter of wonder that she had not succeeded 
in wholly crushing the colonization enterprise, and securing to herself 
the control of that richest of all the tropical portions of the world. 
But all her efforts at checking the progress of this heaven-born enter- 
prise have been as fruitless as those adopted by her in reference to 
the slave trade, or for civilizing Africa. The fact stands acknow- 
ledged before the world, that Great Britain, after the expenditure of 
more than one hundred millions of dollars, has failed in suppressing the 
slave trade on one mile of coast beyond the limits of her colonies, 
while our colonization efforts have swept it from nearly four hundred 
miles of coast, where it formerly existed in its chief strength. 

But why is it that there is such a marked difference in the results ? 
Why is it that the Colonization Society, with a yearly income some- 
times of only $10,000 and rarely ever reaching $50,000, should have, 
in twenty-six years, annihilated the slave trade on 400 miles of coast, 
and secured the blessings of freedom to 80,000 men, formerly slaves, 
and have succeeded in binding, by treaties, 200,000 more, never again 
to eno-age in the traffic in their brethren, — while Great Britain, with all 
her wealth and power, has accomplished nothing? 

We will not undertake to answer these questions. It cannot 
always' be discerned by men why the Ruler of the Universe often 
defeats the best devised human schemes, which to them may seem 
certain of success, and prospers those which, to human foresight, 
were the least promising. We need only remind you that Great 
Britain has relied, almost exclusively, upon the employment of 
physical force to accomplish her purposes, while the Colonization 
Society has depended, as exclusively, upon moral means. The 
agencies it has employed have been the humble mechanic, the hus- 
bandman, the school-master, the missionary and the Bible. And, 
though often thwarted in its purposes by those who felt interested in 
its overthrow, yet, relying upon moral means, and never resorting to 
force but yi self-defense, it has signally triumphed and put to shame 
the wisdom of men and the power of kingdoms. Its operations have 
proved that the schoolmaster, the missionary and the Bible possess a 
moral power infinitely more potent than coronets and crowns. 

These results go very far toward proving the truth of the proposi- 
tion, announced in the outset, — that the Gospel of Christ is the 
medium through which God operates in bringing mankind into sub- 
jection to his will, and that a reliance upon any other means for the 
moral redemption of the nations of the world, must prove an utter 
failure. 

In view of all these results, we are fully warranted in maintaining 
that the Colonization Society, in its measures for benefitting the 
colored people, has done an incalculable amount of good, and demands 
our confidence and our support, and that it is justly entitled to the 
paternity of three measures which have been productive of the great- 
est good to Africa : 

1. The procuring of the first legal enactments declaring the slave 
trade piracy. 



Colonization to Liberia. 



19 



2. The total extinction of that cruel traffic from near 400 miles of 
the coast of Africa. 

3. The establishment of an Independent Christian Republic on 
that continent. 

There is another feature of this question, of the disposal of the 
free colored population of the United States, which demands attention, 
and is of the utmost importance in selecting for them a home. The 
northern latitudes of the United States do not furnish a suitable 
home for men of African descent. The evidence of this fact is 
furnished by their own movements when left free to act. The census 
tables supply the testimony upon this subject. 

By referring to table III, it will be seen that the ratio of the natural 
increase of the free colored population is tivo per cent, per annum. 
The knowledge of this fact furnishes the key to determine the in- 
crease or decrease, by emigration, in any state or group of states. 

IV. 

Free colored population in Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, 

Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Vermont. 



TEARS. 


1790 


1800 


1810 


1820 


1830 


1840 


Total number 


13,126 


17,317 


19,488 


21,248 


21,331 


22,634 


Actual increase 




4,191 


2,171 


1,760 


83 


1,303 


Increase per cent. 














per annum 




3.19 


1.25 


0.90 


0.03 


0.61 


Slaves in do. 


3,886 


1,340 


418 


145 


48 


23 



In the prosecution of the investigation of the question before us, 
the effect of climate upon the African constitution, we find that 
previous to 1790, the desire of the manumitted slave to escape from 
the scenes of his oppressions had given to the six New England 
states a free colored population of 13,126. From 1790 to 1800 the 
census tables show that the line of emigration was still northward, 
and augmented their ratio of increase more than one-third over the 
natural rate. But during the -next forty years, ending with 1840, 
their ratio of increase, as shown in table IV, was rapidly diminished, 
and fell so far below the ratio of their natural increase, that, from 1820 
to 1830, with a free colored population of 21,248, they had an in- 
crease in these ten years of only eighty three persons. The aggre- 
gate for the whole period stands thus: In 1810 they had a free 
colored population of 19,488, and in 1840 but 22,634, being an in- 
crease of only 3,146; while their natural increase, if retained, would 
have augmented their numbers to 33,648. This diminution must 
have been caused by emigration back again toward the south, 
because we find that New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, had 
a corresponding increase during this period, with the exception of 
the last ten years, when they also lost a portion of their natural 
increase. 

But this tendency of colored men to avoid northern latitudes is 
quite as fully proved by a comparison of the northern parts of New 



20 Influence of Climate on Colored Men. 

York, Pennsylvania and Ohio, with their southern portions, as it is 
exhibited in the case of the New England States, when compared 
with those further south. Take, for example, a few of the counties 
in the north-east of Ohio. In 1840, Geauga had only 3 persons of 
color, Ashtabula 17, Lake 21, Portage 39, Summit 42, Medina 13, 
Lorain 62, Trumbull 70, and Cuyahoga, including the city of Cleve- 
land, 121, in all 388. Now look at a few of the counties bordering 
the slave states and in the more southern part of the state. Belmont, 
in 1840, had 724, Gallia 799, Highland 786, Brown 614, Ross 1195, 
Franklin 805, and Hamilton 2546. 

This contrast, which might be extended much further, reveals the 
fact, that any one of the last named counties, in the southern portion 
of the state, had nearly double, and several of them more than 
double the number of colored persons that the whole eight northern 
counties above named included. 

But to give a more forcible illustration of the truth of our proposi- 
tion, allow me to extend this contrast between the northern and 
southern counties of Ohio, so as to include the whole free colored 
population of the state. By drawing a line east and west across the 
state, so as to divide its territory into about equal parts, giving an 
excess of counties, as now divided, to the north, the result is, that in 
1840, the 38 northern counties, now divided into 42, included only 
2,360 persons of color, while the 40 counties of the southern half 
embraced a colored population of 15,000. And if we deduct Stark, 
Columbiana and Harrison on the east, and Mercer on the west, from 
the northern counties, they will have left, in the 36 remaining coun- 
ties, a free colored population of only 1372, or a little more than half 
the number in Hamilton county. I append the list of all the coun- 
ties, that it may be accessible to those who may wish to prosecute 
this investigation.* 

After making all due allowance for the alledged defect of energy in 
the colored man, as accounting for his not seeking a residence in the 
north ; and what has still more influence on his mind — the greater 
indulgence which he finds from the planter of the south, now settled 
in our more southern counties, than he does from the northern man 
who is a stranger to his habits, — there is, we affirm, ample testimony 
to prove, that the northern latitudes of the United States do not furnish 
a suitable climate for men of African blood, and that they are con- 
oregating as far south as circumstances will permit. This fact, we 
insist, proves conclusively the necessity of securing a tropical home 
for colored men. 

But in addition to all the foregoing details, which prove the inadapt- 
ation of northern latitudes, to the African, we have, very recently, the 
fact revealed to us in a late census of Upper Canada, that in that 
province, where we had been a thousand times assured that from 20, 
000 to 25,000 runaway slaves from the United States had found 
refuge, there were, in 1847, barely 5,571 colored persons in the 

*See Note, page 21. 



Influence of Climate on Colored Men. 



21 



colony. In this statement, however, which includes the whole 
twenty districts, there may be an error in one of them which may 
vary this result. 

But I cannot dismiss this part of our subject without a few remarks. 
The citizens of our northern counties often charge us, of the south- 
ern, with being destitute of the ordinary feelings of humanity and 
benevolence, because we are disposed to discourage the further immi- 
gration of colored men into the state, and because we advocate a 
separation of the races by colonization. And this they do with an 
apparent seriousness that warrants us in concluding that they believe 
what they say. Perhaps if we had only three to a county, like old 

The following statement, referred to on the previous page, gives the colored popu- 
lation of Ohio in the several counties, commencing at the northern and southern 
extremities, as presented in the census of 1840. 

Ashtabula ....... 

Lake 



Hamilton ......... 2576 





... 122 




... 614 




... 63 


Scioto 206 


Gallia 


... 148 
. . . . 799 




... 28 
... 315 


Pike 


. . . . 329 




. . . . 786 




. • . . 254 
. . 341 




. . . . 377 




. . . 1195 




. . 46 




... 55 




. . . . 269 
. . 13 




. . . . 68 


Perrv 47 



Fairfield 342 

Pickaway 333 

Fayette 239 

■Greene 344 

Clark 200 

Montgomery 376 

Preble , . 88 

Darke 200 

Miami 211 

Shelby 262 

Logan 407 

Champaign 328 

Madison 97 

Franklin 805 

Licking 140 

Muskingum 562 

Guernsey 190 

Belmont 742 

Jefferson 497 



17 
21 
3 
121 
70 
39 
42 
13 
62 
97 
106 
41 
5 
65 
32 
54 
6 
2 


204 
23 
8 
4 
52 
5 
65 
' 41 
3 
204 
49 
Columbiana 417 



Geauga 
Cuyahoga 
Trumbull . 
Portage 
Summit 
Medina 
Lorain . . 
Erie . . . 
Huron . . 
Sandusky 
Ottawa 
Seneca . . 
Wood . . 
Lucas . . 
Henry . . 
Williams . 
Paulding . 
Van Wert 
Mercer . . 
Allen . . 
Hancock . 
Hardin . . 
Marion • . 
Crawford . 
Richland . 
Wayne 
Holmes 
Stark . . 
Carroll . . 



Harrison . 

Tuscarawas 

Coshocton 

Knox . . 

Delaware . 

Union . . 

Morrow 

Mahoning 

Auglaize 

Defiance 



163 
71 
38 
63 
76 
78 



22 



Influence of Climate and Foreign Emigration. 



Geauga, we, too, might be disposed to catch them for pets, to amuse 
our children, as we do mocking birds and paroquets. But with us 
the novelty of seeing a colored man has long since passed away, and 
we no longer make pets of them, on account of color, but treat them 
precisely as we do other men. The upright and industrious we respect 
and encourage. The immoral and degraded we wish anywhere else 
than in our households or as near neighbors. 

V. 
Free colored population in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsyl- 







vania. 








YEARS. 


1790 


1800 


1810 


1820 


1830 


1840 


Total number 


13,953 


29,340 


55,668 


74,742 


101,103 


118,925 


Actual increase 




15,387 


26,328 


19,074 


26,361 


17,822 


Increase per cent. 














per annum 




11.02 


8.97 


3.42 


3.54 


1.76 


Slaves in do. 


36,484 


34,471 


26,663 


17,856 


2,732 


742 



But in addition to climate, the colored man has another formidable 
adversary to contend with. New York, New Jersey, and Pennsyl- 
vania, as before stated, and as the figures in table V show us, had 
accessions to their colored population much beyond the natural in- 
crease on their original numbers up till 1830. But from 1830 to 1840 
these states also commenced repelling their free colored population, 
and their ratio of increase was reduced considerably below two per 
cent, per annum — Pennsylvania, however, still having a ratio of 2. r %\, 
showing that she had not been as much affected as the other two 
states, though between 1820 and 1830 her ratio had been reduced to 



1. 



per cent, per annum. 



VI. 



Free colored population of Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia. 



YEARS. 


1790 


1800 


1810 


1820 | 1830 


1840 


Total number 


24,718 


47,979 


77,633 


89,817116,141 


128,781 


Actual increase 




23,261 


29,654 


12,184j 26,324 


12,640 


Increase per cent. 












per annum 




9.41 


6.13 


1.55] 2.93 


1.08 


Slaves 


405,350 


457,584 


508,197 


537,060,576,043 


530,087 



VII. 

Free colored population of North Carolina, South Carolina, and 

Georgia. 



YEARS. 


1790 


1800 


1810 


1820 


1830 


1840 


Total number 


7,174 


11,247 


16,621 


23,205 


29,950 


33,761 


Actual increase 




4,073 


5,374 


6,584 


6,745 


3,811 


Increase per cent. 














per annum 




5.67 


4.77 


3.96 


2.90 


1.27 


Slaves 


236,930J338,851 


470,407 


613,148 


778,533 


853,799 



Influence of Slavery and Foreign Emigration. 23 

Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, 
and Georgia, also repulsed nearly one half of their natural increase 
between 1830 and 1840, as exhibited in tables VI and VII, showing 
that the emigration from the northern states was not passing in that 
direction. 

VIII. 
Free colored population of Kentucky, Tennessee, and Alabama. 



YEARS. 


1790 
475 


1800 


1810 


1820 


1830 


18 10 


Total number 


1,050 


3,030 


6,353 


11,044 


14,880 


Actual increase 




575 


1,980 


3,323 


3,691 


3,836 


Increase per cent. 














per annum 




12.10 


18.85 


10.96 


7.35 


3.47 


Slaves 


15,247 


53,927 


125,096 254,278 424,365 


618,849 



Kentucky, Tennessee, and Alabama, though for a time, receiving 
large accessions of free colored people emigrating, probably, from 
Virginia and North Carolina, westward into their bounds, seem also 
to have checked it, between 1830 and 1840, to a considerable extent. 
But as more energetic measures have since been adopted to repel all 
immigration, extending even to the selling of the intruders into 
slavery, as was the case last year in Kentucky; the census of 1850 
will no doubt exhibit a reduction of the ratio of these states, also, to 
the natural rate of increase, if not below it. 

Louisiana, alone, of all the larger slave states, has maintained a 
uniform increase of her free colored population. Her position on 
the Mississippi affords great facilities to enterprising colored men, 
wishing to escape from the rigors of northern winters, to penetrate 
her territory. 

IX. 
Free colored population of Louisiana. 



YEARS. 


1790 


1800 


1810 


1820 


1830 1840 


Total number 






7,585 


10,960 


16,710 25,502 


Actual increase 








3,375 


5,750, 8,792 


Increase per cent. 












per annum 








4.44 


5.24 5.26 


Slaves 






34,660 


69,064 


109,588 168,452 



In the slave 'states, the prejudices and the rigid laws in relation 
to their free colored people, will account for the losses which they 
have sustained. But in New York and New Jersey, some other 
cause must have exerted a repelling influence, or there would not 
have been such a desertion of that region by colored men. This 
cause will, we believe, be found to exist in the foreign emigration 
into our country. The foreign emigrant, escaping from the tyranny 
of the despotisms which have so long crushed his energies, and 
where he had been accustomed to work for a mere subsistence, is 
overjoyed, on reaching this country, to receive a rate of wages for 
which the colored man is unwilling to labor. He is thus the most 



24 



Influence of Slavery and Foreign Emigration. 



formidable rival of the colored man, and supplants him in his employ- 
ments and drives him from his temporary home. But while this 
rivalry of the foreigner, the prejudice of the slave holder, and the 
influence of climate, seem to create insuperable obstacles to the 
success of any scheme of securing to colored men a permanent home 
in the north, it affords a strong proof of the wisdom of the scheme of 
African Colonization, where the rivalry of white men and the influ- 
ence of climate, or the prejudice against color, can never reach him 
or interrupt him in his pursuits. 

But there is still another subject connected with the movements of 
the free colored people which greatly interests the citizens of Ohio. 
We have seen that a regular movement of the free colored population, 
from north to south, has been in progress ever since 1800, and that it 
was only checked, in its southern course, by reaching the borders of 
the slave states. But after 1830 this floating mass took a new direc- 
tion. As the foreign emigration first touches the eastern coast, its 
effects are first felt there, and from thence it rolls westward. While 
the current of the colored emigration, therefore, is setting in from the 
north, it is met by this opposing tide from the east, and deflected to 
the west. 

On turning to the west, we find that while this continuous stream 
of colored emigration has been pouring out of all the states norlh-east, 
east, and south-east of us, they have been concentrating with almost 
equal rapidity in the Ohio valley. 

X. 

Free colored population in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. 



YEARS. 


1790 


1800 


1810 


1820 


1830 


1840 


Total number 




500 


2,905 


6,598 


14,834 


28,105 


Actual increase 






2,405 


3,693 


8,236 


13,271 


Increase per cent. 














per annum 






48.10 


12.71 


12.48 


8.94 



Look at the figures in table X. Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, in 
1800, had 500 free persons of color in their bounds. In 1840 they 
numbered 28,105. If the influx, since 1840, has been as great as in 
the preceding period, these three states will have a free colored popu- 
lation, at present, of over 50,000, of which the share of Ohio is 
30,000. 

To afford a more striking contrast of the position in which we 
stand, as compared with the six New England States, it is only 
necessary to say, that the ratio of the annual increase of the free 
colored population of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, from 1820 to 1830, 
doubled their numbers in eight years, while that of the former six 
states would require, to double theirs, a period of two hundred and 
fifty six years. 

But to avoid a charge of unfairness in selecting a period of only 
ten years, and that the most favorable to our purpose, we shall extend 
the contrast to forty years, from 1840 back to 1800, and the result is 



Free Colored Emigration into Ohio. 25 

still more startling. During this period of forty years, the six New 
England States did not increase their colored population quite one 
third, ( it was jfc ) wmle 0hio ' Indiana, and Illinois, have doubled 
fifty-five times on their original numbers. Our increase, therefore, 
when compared with theirs for a period of forty years, stands as 55 

to i. . . 

Here, now, is presented a condition of things which demands the 
attention of the Legislature and the people of Ohio. We have, for 
years, been disposed to evade the question of the provision to be 
made for the people of color. The causes operating to concentrate 
them in the Ohio valley are beyond our control, and they must con- 
tinue to congregate here. Nor can we check this movement by any 
ordinary precautions, were we disposed to make the effort, because 
we cannot, by any legislation of ours, reach the causes which compel 
them to leave the other states. We cannot change the climate of the 
north-east, nor mold the African constitution so that it may endure 
the rigors of its winters ; and much less can we impart to the colored 
man a spirit of energy and activity in business which shall enable 
him to compete with the New Englander. We are still less able to 
roll back the mighty wave of foreign emigration, which, annually, 
supplies to the east a surplus of cheap labor, and drives the man of 
color from his employments, and compels him to wander to the west 
in search of bread. And it is still more impracticable for us to 
induce the slave states to repeal the laws and give up the prejudices 
which drive out the free colored man from amongst them. The 
colored people, if disposed, cannot extend westward and southward. 
The iron wall of slavery and the prohibitions in the new constitutions 
of Illinois and Iowa, will prevent emigration in that direction. They 
are, therefore, shut up, imprisoned among us, and instead of any 
diminution we must prepare for an increase of tbeir numbers. 

It is a fact well understood, that in the slave states, no movement, 
involving emancipation to any great extent, can now take place 
except in connection with the removal of the freedmen from 
among them. Some of them at present talk of emancipation and 
colonization in Africa, but if we should open our doors as widely as 
many desire, the slave holder need not tax himself with the expense 
of the passage of his slaves to Liberia. It will be cheaper and less 
troublesome to let them alone, and they will soon put themselves 
under the care of their loving brothers across the Ohio river. And, 
in adopting this course, the slave holder may feel that he is conferring 
a favor upon us, because, on several occasions, where masters had 
emancipated their slaves, and started them for Liberia, they have been 
pursuaded to escape to Ohio or Pennsylvania. 

Several of the border states will, before many years, become free 
states, because of the growing conviction among the people that the 
presence of slaves upon their soil has created a blighting influence- — 
that it has paralyzed the physical and moral energies of the white 
youth — that until the slaves are removed, the sons of their yeomanry 
will not engage in field labor, and that until this revolution is effected 



26 Free Colored Emigration into Ohio. 

the slave states cannot prosper as the free states have done. They 
are further convinced that the presence of colored people, as free 
laborers, will exert equally as baneful an effect upon the industry of 
the whites, as the presence of the slave has done. We have failed, 
in a twenty years war of words, to change these opinions. They 
know that their sons scorn the idea of laboring upon an equality with 
men of servile origin. This may all be wrong, but that does not 
alter the fact. The people of the slave states will never consent to 
emancipation, but in connection with the removal of the freedmen. 
This is their fixed purpose : and any measure for the melioration of 
the condition of the colored man which does not include this fact, 
and adapt itself to it, will be so far defective. 

Now, it seems evident, that to whatever extent emancipation may 
take place, whether by individuals or by states ; and further, to what- 
ever degree the slave states may carry their hostility to the free 
colored people among them, and succeed in driving them out ; to 
the same extent may ^ve expect to be made the receivers of the un- 
fortunate wanderers, unless we can divert the current of emigration 
in some other direction. 

With all these facts before us — the influence of climate — the rival- 
ry of the foreign emigrant — the prejudices of the slave holder — the 
adverse legislation of the slave states — the rapid concentration of the 
free colored people along the southern margin of the Ohio valley — 
and the impracticability of their emigrating further south or west — it 
must be apparent, at once, that we occupy a very different position 
from that of the New England States and the northern counties of 
Ohio. We are constantly receiving large accessions from the slave 
states. Many of our towns and villages have had their colored 
population doubled since 1840, and there is no prospect, at present, 
of their influx being checked. 

The Ohio Black Laws, though designed, originally, to operate 
as a check upon colored immigration, have wholly failed of their 
object, and have only added another to the numerous inefficient 
measures adopted for protection against the evils generated by slavery 
— evils so numerous and complicated, that, often, the remedies applied 
only increase the malady. 

And here we must be allowed to remark, that few men can excel 
our northern friends in depicting the horrors of slavery. They have 
studied it chiefly in that point of view. Its degrading and brutifying 
tendencies, generating vices the most debasing and destructive, have 
been portrayed, but too truly, in our hearing, by them, a thousand 
times. They, of course, expect us to believe their statements and to 
adopt their views of the odiousness of the system. 

Now, in return, we ask of them that they shall believe us. And 
if one half they have told us be true, in relation to the low state of 
morals — the deep and damning depravity of the victims of slavery— 
then visit us with the plague, or any other physical calamity, rather 
than bring this moral pestilence into contact with our childrren. We 
speak but the common sentiment of the great mass of our citizens. 



Necessity of Colonization. 27 

These sentiments are not generated by hostile feelings to the colored 
man. any more than the missionary, who wishes to guard well the 
virtues of his children and impart to them a nobility of thought and 
sentiment, should be charged with hating the degraded Hindoo or 
Hottentot, for whose intellectual and moral elevation he risks his life, 
because he sends his children back to a Christian country to be edu- 
cated by Christian friends. 

Many of the first settlers of southern Ohio had fled from Virginia, 
Kentucky, and the Carolinas, to rear their families beyond the reach 
of the demoralizing effects of slavery, and in the enactment of the 
Black Laws they hoped to erect an impassable barrier between them- 
selves and slavery, or any of its fruits. 

It was not prejudice against color, alone, that dictated the passage 
of the Black Laws of Ohio, and which has kept them so long upon 
our statute book, but it was a dictate of self-preservation. It was a 
determination to confine slavery, with all its fruits, within the limits 
where it existed, and to guard themselves and their children against 
moral contamination by contact with those unfortunate beings whose 
deplorable degradation has been so eloquently, and often, but too truly 
delineated to us. 

A repeal of the Black Laws may be proper;* some modification of 
them, at least, is demanded. But it forms no part of the task assign- 
ed us to express an opinion on the subject. This much, however, 
we can say, that something more is needed than the repeal of these 
laws, before the colored man can have justice done him, or the public 
mind be satisfied with the posture of affairs. 

Nor can we be persuaded that he who rarely ever sees a colored 
person, and who knows nothing of the unfavorable circumstances in 
which a majority of the colored people are placed, where they are 
congregated in large numbers, is the proper man to mature measures 
for their relief. He has not the opportunity of forming a practical 
judgment in the case, and his schemes, therefore, will be more apt to 
partake of the visionary than the practicable. 

But we are told that it is our duty to labor for the elevation and im- 
provement of the colored man, and thus prepare him for citizenship. 
In reply, it is only necessary to say, that of the importance of this 
duty the friends of colonization are fully aware, and to discharge it is 
their direct and purposed aim ; but through the unhappy opposition 
of their enemies, in this good work, who have assumed to be exclu- 
sively the friends of the man of color, inducing him to believe that 
we are his "inveterate enemies" we have been, to a great extent, 
excluded from that access to him requisite to the fulfillment of our 
wishes. The colored people, therefore, are not accessible to us, and 
the responsibility of their improvement does not rest upon us, but 
upon those who have them in charge. And even if they were access- 
ible to us, and we had their confidence, should the emigration from 
the other states continue to be as rapid as heretofore, the execution 

This lecture was written before their repeal by the present Legislature. 



28 Necessity of Colonization. 

of the task of their education would be a burden too heavy for Ohio 
to bear. But had we the means, the circumstances of inequality, to 
which reference has already been made, and which neither authorita- 
tive legislation nor the resolves of voluntary associations can remedy, 
forbid the hope of giving that form and measure of education requisite 
to qualify any man for the high duties and enjoyments of citizenship. 

"What then can we do ? No large body of men will long remain 
contented in the bosom of any community or nation, unless in the 
enjoyment of equal social and political rights. Ignorant, and vicious, 
and lazy men are dangerous in any community; because, not under- 
standing their true interests, and but little inclined to do their duty, 
they are easily turned into an engine of evil to society. Our own 
peace and safety, therefore, demand that we should secure to our 
colored people the blessings of education and the advantages of 
political equality. 

But we firmly believe that the first of these objects, the education 
of the free colored people, can only be accomplished under circum- 
stances where the colored man can, by the labor of his own hands, 
provide for his own wants, while he is prosecuting his studies. And 
we as fully believe, that such a combination of circumstances as will 
make the thorough education of our colored people practicable, exists 
only in Liberia. In that climate winter makes no demands, and the 
labor of one man will easily support three. Schools are already or- 
ganized, and every parent is required by law to educate his children. 
In a climate, like ours, however, demanding almost constant labor 
during summer to provide for winter, and where schools are accessi- 
ble to but few of the colored people, there is but little to encourage 
the hope that their education can become general. To this conclusion 
intelligent colored men themselves have arrived, and the erection of 
the Colored Manual Labor School, near Columbus, Ohio, where 
200 acres of land have been secured for this object, and paid for, 
chiefly, by contributions from colored men — where education and labor 
can go hand in hand — shows the strength of the hold which this convic- 
tion has upon their minds. But the advantages of such an institution 
cannot be enjoyed by very many. At most, only a few hundreds can be 
accommodated at the same time. Such an institution, therefore, while 
it may be of immense advantage to a few, cannot be relied upon to 
secure general education ; and advantageous as it may be to those 
few, still it will be very partial ; far from reaching that high education 
which gives character, and without which, for the standing and hap- 
piness of the citizen, mere learning is, comparatively, of little value. 
We are also as fully convinced that it will be equally as impractica- 
ble, as their general education, to secure to our free colored people the 
advantages of political equality any where else than in the Republic 
of Liberia, or in a new one of their own creation upon that continent. 
That the free colored population of our country can be raised to 
that degree of moral and intellectual elevation which they should 
possess, without the enjoyment of all the social and political privi- 
leges which are the natural birthright of man, none will pretend to 



Necessity of Colonization. 29 

claim. These blessings must be secured to them before any material 
advancement can be expected from them. But the opposition to 
granting them equal social and political privileges in Ohio is a "fixed 
fact." It is believed that no permanent good to the colored man could 
grow out of such a measure. The granting to him the right of 
suffrage has been productive of no good in the states which have 
conceded to him that privilege. Instead of increasing their free 
colored population, since that act of liberality, these states have had a 
regular diminution of it. The right of suffrage to the colored man, 
where the whites have a large preponderance of numbers, seems of 
about the same utility as the tin rattle, or little doll, presented to the 
discontented child, to amuse it and keep it from crying. 

It is the settled conviction of nearly all our thinking men, that 
colored men, intellectually, morally, or politically, can no more flourish 
in the midst of the whites, than the tender sprout from the bursting 
acorn can have a rapid advance to maturity beneath the shade of 
the full-grown oak; while the light of the sun, so essential to its 
growth, penetrates not through the thick foliage to impart its invigora- 
ting influences to the humble tenant of the soil; and where, each 
day, it is liable to be crushed under the feet of those who seek shelter 
from the noon-day heat beneath the boughs of its lordly superior. 

This is no overwrought picture of the condition of the free colored 
people among us. Those stimulants to mental and moral effort, 
which beget such a superiority in citizens of free governments, reach 
not to the mind of the colored man, to rouse him to action. And so 
fully convinced of this fact are intelligent colored men themselves 
becoming, that they are beginning to act in concert in reference to 
securing the necessary territory to adopt a separate political organiza- 
tion. This affords strong grounds for hoping that the day of their 
political redemption is dawning. Heretofore they have been deluded 
with the hope that their elevation would be effected among the 
whites ; that hope is now fading from their minds. The adoption of 
measures to secure a distinct political organization is an acknowledg- 
ment of the truth, that a separation from the whites is essential to 
the prosperity of the colored man, and that colonization at some 
point offers to him his only hope of deliverance. This is an impor- 
tant step in the progress toward a settlement of this vexed question. 
It is true, that, at present, an eye is turned, by many of those who 
are agitating this subject, toward a grant of land from congress out 
of the territory acquired from Mexico. As this is the only territory 
now at the disposal of congress, and as the question of its future 
ownership will be settled during the next year, at furthest, there will 
soon be a decision of that matter. Out of that territory, if any where 
on the continent, must the donation of lands be made for the future 
African state. And upon it, or to Liberia, must the wave of emi- 
gration roll when it recedes from our borders. 

Here, then, we perceive that this question is assuming a new and 
definite form. A separate political organization is desired by many 
of the colored men. But they think Liberia is too distant, and too 



30 Necessity of Colonization. 

unhealthy, and therefore wish a grant out of New Mexico or Califor- 
nia. There is, perhaps, not a man in this audience, nor in the north, 
who would object to such a grant for such a purpose, so far as the 
grant of United States' property is concerned. Your speaker,'.for his 
part, is willing to raise up both hands and shout at the topmost pitch 
of his voice, in the ears of congress, to secure it, if he thought it could 
be obtained, and that it would, to the occupant, be a peaceful pos- 
session, and safe for the country. But he believes it is idle, it is 
wicked, longer to keep the poor colored man pursuing phantoms 
which always must elude his grasp. We say, frankly, that we have 
no hope that such a grant of territory can be had from congress. 
And even if it could, dare we hope that it would prove a peaceful 
home, such as prudent Christian men would wish to leave as a legacy 
to their children ? Its proximity to the slave states, it is feared, might 
lead to continual collisions. 

It is useless, however, to discuss this question, because, whenever 
our intelligent colored men are put in possession of the facts in relation 
to Liberia, they must greatly prefer it to any point on this continent. 

We are aware that some of the colored orators declaim loudly 
against any attempts to persuade the free colored people to emigrate 
to Africa, while three millions of their brethren remain behind in 
slavery. Now, it is very natural that a benevolent heart should dic- 
tate such feelings, and we must respect their motives. But we would 
remind all such objectors to emigration to Liberia, that while three 
millions of their brethren are enchained here, there are, according to 
the best authorities, one hundred and ten millions in Africa, eighty 
millions of whom are of their own caste, including, no doubt, their 
own blood relations, who are mostly crushed under a system of 
oppression and of cruelty, and reduced to a condition of moral degra- 
dation, compared with which, American slavery, with all its woes, 
is bliss itself. These eighty millions of men are nearly all destitute 
of the gospel of Christ, and, consequently, without the elements of 
an intellectual and moral renovation. The sale of their brethren 
into slavery, excepting in a few sunny spots, illuminated by Christian 
colonies, still continues with all its attendant horrors. The slave 
trade, baffling the utmost exertions for its suppression, is still prose- 
cuted with unabated vigor. • Its wretched victims are still found 
wedged together in the foul and close recesses of the slave ships, with 
scarcely space enough to each for the heart to swell in the agony of 
its despair.' All hope that it can be suppressed by operations on the 
ocean are at an end. It must be assailed where it originated, — on the 
land. The instrumentality to be employed must be that which the 
result of long experience dictates, — the gospel. The agents to per- 
form this great work are as clearly designated — colored Christian 
colonists. This combined agency of the gospel and colonization has 
already begun to redress the wrongs of Africa. " It is fast restoring 
a continent shrouded in the darkness of accumulated centuries, to the 
lights of civilization and Christianity. It is opening up to that 
degraded and impoverished people, new sources of prosperity and 



Practicability of Colonization. 



31 



new fields of enterprise in the boundless resources of that great con- 
tinent.' The agencies so successfully begun by the colonization 
scheme, need only to be sufficiently augmented to secure the regen- 
eration of Africa. 

Then, with such ample provision made for the free colored man, 
and with such a field of future greatness and of glory openino- up 
before him, why should he not be encouraged, and why not aided, 
to enter upon his rich inheritance, instead of begging for a home on 
this continent, where, at best, his future prospects would be overcast 
with gloom. Does the man of color wish to speak to the southern 
slave-holder in tones that can be heard and will be respected ? instead 
of relying upon the feeble cry of three and a half millions in this 
country, Africa has eighty millions of voices which he may control, 
and whose united shout for freedom to the slave, would shake the 
fetters from his limbs and give him liberty. 

IV. The practicability of colonizing the free people of color. 

The best mode of discussing the practicability of any scheme, is, 
first to ascertain what is to be accomplished. The following list of 
the twenty-four principal states, and the number of free colored peo- 
ple in each, in 1840, presents the amount of persons to be provided 
for, and the manner of their distribution throughout the union. 



Maine, 


1,355 


Pennsylvania, 


47,854 


N. Hampshire, 


537 


Ohio, 


17,342 


Massachusetts, 


8,669 


Indiana, 


7,165 


Rhode Island, 


3,238 


Illinois, 


3,598 


Connecticut, 


8,105 


Delaware, 


16,919 


Vermont, 


730 


Maryland, 


62,020 


New York, 


50,027 


Virginia, 


49,842 


New Jersey, 


21,044 


Kentucky, 


7,317 



Tennessee, 


5,524 


N. Carolina, 


22,732 


S. Carolina, 


8,276 


Georgia, 


2,753 


Mississippi, 


1,366 


Missouri, 


1,574 


Alabama, 


. 2,039 


Louisiana, 


25,502 



It will be seen, under our first head, that the number of human 
beings torn from Africa, on American account alone, in 1847, all of 
whom, perhaps, were for the Brazilian market, amounted to 84,356. 
Now, we would ask whether this fact does not furnish a useful lesson 
upon the subject of the practicability of colonization from the 
United States to Africa. 

The total annual increase of the whole colored population of the 
United States, slave and free, from 1830 to 1840, was 54,356, or, 
30,000 less than the exports of slaves, in 1847, from Africa for the 
American market. 

The whole number of the free colored population of the United 
States, in 1840, was 386,235, or only a little over four and a half 
times greater than one year's importation from Africa. 

The total increase of the free colored population of the United 
States, from 1830 to 1840, was 6,664, annually, making the number 
torn from Africa, in one year, more than twelve and a half times as 
great as the whole annual increase of the free colored population of 
the United States. 

The total free colored population of Ohio, is, at present, about 



32 Practicability of Colonization. 

30,000, and thatof Indiana and Illinois 20,000. The other states will 
have but a small advance on their free colored population of 1840. 
The exports of slaves from Africa, in one year, are, therefore, nearly 
three times greater than the whole number of free colored people at 
present in Ohio ; more than four times that of Indiana and Illinois ; 
nearly four times that of the six New England states in 1840; nearly 
double that of Pennsylvania ; thirteen thousand more than that of 
New York and New Jersey ; four thousand more than Delaware 
and Maryland ; nearly double that of Virginia ; nearly seventeen 
thousand more than double that of North Carolina, South Carolina, 
and Georgia ; nearly six times that of Kentucky, Tennessee, and 
Alabama; and nearly four times that of Louisiana. 

If, therefore, a set of desperadoes, not so numerous but that they 
have eluded detection and capture, can, in one year, accomplish all 
that is here enumerated, what could not the united efforts of the 
legislatures of the several states accomplish, without oppressive taxa- 
tion, were they simultaneously to commence the work of colonizing 
the free colored people? 

Suppose each of the states in the foregoing list, were, as a prepar- 
atory measure, to appropriate to the colonization society, one dollar 
for each colored person in their bounds, the sum of $375,528 would 
be raised, being about one half the whole sum expended by the 
society since its origin. Now, there is scarcely one of the states 
named, which could not give an annual appropriation of the sum 
stated, without the tax being felt by its people. 

The sum required by this scheme, to be expended by Ohio, would 
be only one cent and a half for each of the two millions of her present 
population. To pay the expenses of the transportation of her whole 
30,000 'free colored people, at $50 each, — the sum for which the 
colonization society agrees to take out emigrants — would cost but 
seventy-five cents for each person. But suppose Ohio could prevent 
all further immigration into the state, and would agree to send out the 
natural increase only, which, at two per cent, on 30,000, would be 
600, the tax would be but one cent and a half to each citizen of the 
State. 

Then, who will say that it will not he practicable to raise this sum 
in Ohio, on condition that six hundred persons of color, annually, 
would volunteer to emigrate ? And which of the other states would 
decline entering into a measure of such easy accomplishment ? We 
trust not one. 

As it may amuse the curious, and furnish a rule to determine the 
quota of each state for paying the cost of emigration of its natural 
increase, we would here state, that one dollar per head, for the whole 
free colored population, is exactly fifty dollars a head for the natural 
increase, — the ratio of increase being two per cent. One dollar a 
head, for each free colored person in a state, will, therefore, transfer 
its natural increase to Africa, and put them in possession of a home- 
stead upon which to make a living. 

I shall not, here, refer to the probabilities of the free colored people 



Influence of Colonization on Missionary Efforts. 33 

being willing to accept the offered boon of a home in Liberia, but* 
leave it to another branch of our subject. 

V. The influence of Colonization upon the native Africans, and 
upon Missionary efforts in Africa. 

On these points we shall study great brevity. The influence of 
colonization upon the native Africans has been, in all respects, bene- 
ficial. It is only necessary to state, that in purchasing the lands 
from the native kings and head men, and thus securing the right of 
sovereignty over the soil, the inhabitants are at once secured in the 
protection of the laws of the Liberian government, and in the enjoy- 
ment of its advantages. Those held in slavery, and they constitute 
about eight-tenths of the population, are at once emancipated. The 
same care is taken in promoting their education that is observed in 
the instruction of emigrants from the United States. When suffi- 
ciently advanced in intelligence, they are admitted to the rights of 
citizenship. In this way, 75,000 of the natives have been emanci- 
pated from slavery, and secured in all the rights of freemen. By 
treaties with surrounding tribes, 200,000 more are bound not to 
engage in the slave trade, nor to go to war amongst themselves. 
These treaties secure to the respective tribes embraced, the protection 
of the Republic against all other hostile tribes. A breach of the 
conditions of these treaties, on the part of any tribe, forfeits the pro- 
tection of the colony. Thus, for ten years past, the colony has 
preserved peace amongst many petty tribes • whose trade formerly 
was war. Colonization, therefore, in many respects, has done great 
good to Africa. And, in addition to all this, we may add, that such 
is the favorable impression which our colonies are beginning to send 
abroad among the native tribes, that, recently, six kings have com- 
bined and annexed their territories, including one hundred miles of 
coast, to the Maryland colony. This statement we have met with, 
as coming from Bev. Mr. Pinney, for a time the governor of Liberia. 
The motive prompting these kings to annex, is, that they may enjoy 
the protection of the colony. 

The History of Missionary efforts in Western Africa, fully sus- 
tains the truthfulness of the pictures which have been drawn of the 
fatality of the climate to the white man, and of the dreadful moral 
darkness which overspreads the land.* 

Catholic missionaries labored for two hundred and forty-one years, 
but every vestige of their influence has been gone for many genera- 
tions. The Moravians, beginning in 1736, toiled for thirty-four 
years, making five attempts, at a cost of eleven lives, and effected 
nothing. An English attempt, at Bulama Island, in 1792, partly 
missionary in its character, was abandoned in two years, with a loss 
of one hundred lives. A mission sent to the Foulahs, from England, 
in 1795, returned without commencing its labors. The London, 

* We have drawn our facts mostly from Mr. Tracy's history of Colonization and 
Missions. 



34 Influence of Colonization on Missionary Efforts. 

Edinburgh and Glasgow society, commenced three stations in 1797, 
which were extinct in three years, and five of the six missionaries 
dead. The Church missionary society sent out its first missionaries 
in 1804, but it was four years before they could find a place out of 
the colony ot Sierra Leone, where they could commence their 
labors. They established and attempted to maintain ten stations. 
But the hostility of the natives, who preferred the slave traders to 
them, drove the missionaries from nine of them, and forced them to 
take refuge in Sierra Leone, the only place where they could labor 
with safety and with hope. The tenth station at Goree, was also 
abandoned and given up to the French. 

" Here, then, without counting Sierra Leone and Goree, are eigh- 
teen Protestant missionary attempts, before the settlement of Liberia, 
all of which failed from the influence of climate, and the hostility of 
the natives, generated by the opposition of the slave traders." And, 
since the settlement of Liberia, until 1845, when these investiga- 
tions were completed, all attempts to sustain missions beyond the 
influence of the Colony have also failed. 

" But while we mourn over these failures in attempts to do good to 
Africa, it is a source of the most profound gratitude to have the facts 
placed authentically before the world, that every attempt at coloniz- 
ing Africa with colored persons, and every missionary effort con- 
nected with the Colonies, either of England or America, have been 
successful." 

These facts prove, conclusively, that while other lands may be 
approached and blessed by other methods, the only hope for Africa 
appears to be in Colonization by persons of color. This is the only 
star of promise which kindles its light on her dark horizon. It is 
the only apparent means of her salvation. 

"After the presentation of such an array of facts, extending over a 
period of four centuries, may we not claim that the question is 
decided — that the facts of the case preclude all possibility of reason- 
able doubt— that the combined action of Colonization and missions 
is proved to be an effectual means, and is the only known means, 
of converting and civilizing Africa.' 1 '' 

And who that believes this, will not give heart and hand to the 
work, and labor, through good report and through ill, for the con- 
centration of all the talent and piety, belonging to the colored people, 
upon that coast? Who that truly desires the redemption of the 
African race from their degradation of accumulated centuries, but 
would rejoice to see hundreds and thousands, and tens of thousands, 
of the virtuous and intelligent of our colored population, like so many 
angels of mercy, flocking to Africa, and employed in that labor of 
love which must be performed before Ethiopia can stretch out her 
hands to God ? 

After what has been said, in relation to the low state of morals 
amongst the slaves, and the new accessions of colored emigrants 
which we are likely to receive from the slave states, it is proper, in 
this place, that we should present some explanation. Our observa- 



Influence of Colonization on Missionary Efforts. 35 

tions, it will be noticed, were based upon the representations made 
by our northern friends on the degrading and brutifying tendencies 
of slavery, and were offered, partly, as a retort upon them for wish- 
ing to overstock us with such a population as they must necessarily 
believe will emanate from the midst of slavery, while they them- 
selves scarcely touch the burthen with the tip of the finger. Our 
views, however, differ materially from theirs, in relation to the 
moral condition of the slaves. 

While we believe that slavery, like despotism in any other form, 
in itself considered, contains no one principle which tends to elevate 
and improve the intellect and the heart, yet we know that there are 
accidents connected with it, in this country, as there have been with 
despotism in Europe, which afford to its victims the means of 
improvement. We believe that the Providence of God never places 
men, towards whom he has designs of mercy, in circumstances 
where the gospel of Christ is not adapted to their condition. That 
gospel, we know, has spoken peace to thousands of poor slaves, and 
whispered to their desponding hearts the hope of freedom in heaven. 
It is undeniable, that an immense degree of intellectual and moral 
advancement, beyond that of the native of African, has been made 
by the slaves of the United States, under all the disadvantages to 
which they have been subjected. It is true, that thousands of 
masters are laboring with much success for the moral and religious 
improvement of their slaves. It is well known, that the moral 
character and religious principle of many a slave will compare with 
and excel that of many of the whites, even in the north. It is 
certain, that the voluntary emancipations which occur, are by this 
class of masters and from this class of slaves. And it is a fact, that 
the greater number of the newly emancipated slaves, who come to 
the free states, have more or less acquaintance with their social, 
moral, and religious duties, and are more or less disposed to make 
further efforts for their own advancement. And knowing and be- 
lieving all this, we are prepared to take them by the hand and to 
encourage them to the full extent of the numbers that we are able to 
receive. We are also prepared to co-operate with, and do aid them, 
in their efforts at education. In the village in which your speaker 
resides, a Presbytery of the church with which he is connected, 
pays, regularly, from a donation by a deceased member, the half of 
the salary of a teacher for a colored school. From observation 
there, and elsewhere, we have learned that though but a small portion 
of the parents have a right appreciation of the importance of educa- 
tion and of the arduousness of the task of acquiring knowledge, yet, 
upon the whole, they manifest fully as much interest in the work 
as the same number of whites would do, who possess no higher a 
standard of intellectual attainment. 

Were it in our power, therefore, to increase the facilities for their 
education a thousand fold, we would do it at once. Because we 
feel it to be an imperative duty resting on the white men of 
the United States, allowing of no halfway measures or efforts, 



36 Relations of England to Liberia. 

to labor for the redemption of Africa, and to repair the wrongfr 
that have been done her. 

But to execute this task, we must call to our aid men of African 
blood. We should have one teacher or missionary for every 1000 
inhabitants. To supply the whole 80,000,000 of people of color in 
Africa, with teachers and missionaries, will, therefore, require an 
educated army of 80,000 colored men, who must be supplied from 
the United States and from Liberia. While, then, we struggle to 
elevate and improve the colored man in the United States, we point 
him to Africa as the field of usefulness in which we wish to see 
him labor. 

VI. The certainty of success of the Colonization scheme, and 
of the perpetuity of the Republic of Liberia. 

In the facts which have been already presented, in the course of 
our investigations, many reasons will be found to encourage our 
hopes that the colonization scheme must continue to prosper, and 
that the experiment of an African Republic must succeed. We shall 
now proceed to offer additional facts and considerations of much more 
weight and importance on this point, than any which we have, yet, 
produced. The first and more important is based upon the com- 
mercial advantages, in Africa, which Liberia is beginning to unfold 
to civilized nations. But as time will not allow us to enter upon an 
extended investigation of the peculiar advantages which each nation 
will derive from the civilization of Africa, we shall confine ourselves 
to those of England, because she is more vitally interested in the 
success of Liberia than all the others. When the facts in her case 
are known, it will be easy to make the application to other nations. 
It will be seen, in the course of these investigations, that it is of the 
utmost importance to England to aid the Republic of Liberia in 
extending its influence with all possible rapidity over the continent 
of Africa. The reasons upon which we base this opinion are briefly 
as follows : 

Next to the necessity under which the government of Great 
Britain is laid to create new markets for her manufactures, comes 
the vast importance which she attaches to having the control of 
tropical possessions and tropical productions. Their importance to 
her heretofore, in contributing to give to her the ascendency which she 
acquired amongst nations, was thus strongly stated by McQueen, in 
1844, when this highly intelligent Englishman was urging upon his 
government the great necessity which existed for securing to itself 
the control of the labor and the products of tropical Africa. 

" During the fearful struggle of a quarter of a century, for her 
existence as a nation, against the power and resources of Europe, 
directed by the most intelligent but remorseless military ambition 
against her, the command of the productions of the torrid zone, and 
the advantageous commerce which that afforded, gave to Great 
Britain the power and the resources which enabled her to meet, to 
combat, and to overcome, her numerous and reckless enemies in 



Relations of England to Liberia. 



every battle-field, whether by sea or by land, throughout the world. 
In her the world saw realized the fabled giant of antiquity. With 
her hundred hands she grasped her foes in every region under 
heaven, and crushed them with resistless energy." 

If the possession and control of tropical products gave to Eng- 
land such immense resources, and secured to her such superiority 
and such power, then, to be deprived of these resources would of 
course exert a corresponding opposite effect, and she would not 
yield them to another but in a death-struggle for their fnaifitai nance. 
Now, we expect to prove that this struggle has commenced and 
progressed to a point of the utmost interest, both to England and to 
the cause of humanity; and that the present moment finds Great 
Britain in & position so disadvantageous, arising from the progress of 
other nations in. tropieal cultivation, that one principal means of her 
extrication is in the success of Liberia- 
Mr. McQueen, in proceeding further with his investigations, 
reveals to us the true position of England by the following startling 
announcement: 

" The increased cultivation and prosperity of foreign tropical pos- 
sessions is beeo^ne so great, and is advancing so rapidly the power 
and resources of other nations, that these are embarrassing this 
country (England,) in all her commercial relations, in her pecuniary 
resources, said in all her political relations and negotiations." 

The peculiar force of these remarks, and the cause for alarm 
which existed, will be better understood by an examination of the 
figures in the following table. They contrast the condition of Great 
Britain as compared with only a few other countries, in the produc- 
tion of three articles, alone, of tropical produce* 



Sugar— 1842 

British possessions. 

West Indies, cwts. 2,508,552 
East Indies, " 940,452 

Mauritius, (1841) " 544,767 
Total 



West Indies, 
East Indies, 



lbs 



3,993,771 

Coffee 

9,186,555 
18,206,448 



Foreign countries. 



Cuba, 
Brazil, 
Java, 
Louisiana, 



cwts. 5,800,000 
" 2,400,000 
" 1,105,757 
" 1,400,000 

Total 10,705,757 



Total 27,393,003 



-1842. 

Java, 
Brazils, 
Cuba, 
Venezuela, 



Cotton 

West Indies, lbs. 427,529 

East Indies, " 77,015,917 

To China, from do. " 60,000,000 

Total 137,443,446 



lbs. 134,842,715 

" 135,000,800 

33,589,325 

34,000,000 

Total 337,432,840 

— 1840. 

United States, lbs. 790,479,275 

Java, " 165,504,800 

Brazil, " 25,22 2,828 

Total 981,206,903 



38 Relations of England to Liberia. 

But that this exhibit may convey its full force to the mind, it 
must be observed, that nearly three-fourths of this slave-grown pro- 
duce, has been created, says McQueen, within thirty years prece- 
ding the date of his writing. (1844.) 

It will be noticed, also, that the whole of these products, with the 
exception of those of Java and Venezuela, are the produce of slave 
labor ; and it must be remembered, also, that the perpetuation and 
increase of this labor is, in a great degree, except in Louisiana, 
depending upon the slave trade for its continuance. It is easy, 
then, to perceive, from the foregoing facts, that the slave trade has 
been very sensibly and very seriously affecting the interests of the 
British government — that it has been an engine in the hands of other 
nations, by which they have thrown England into the back ground 
in the production of those articles of which she formerly had the 
monopoly, and which had given to her such power — and that Great 
Britain must either crush the slave trade, or it ivill continue to 
paralyze her. 

Here is the true secret of her movements in reference to the slave 
trade and slavery. Public sentiment, under the control of Chris- 
tian principle, compelled her in 1806, to a first step in this great 
work of philanthropy ; and this step, once taken, there could be no 
retreat. But this first step, the abolition of the slave trade in her 
colonies, gave to Spain and Portugal all the advantages of that 
traffic, and the cheaper and more abundant labor, thus secured, gave 
a powerful stimulus to the production of tropical commodities in 
their colonies of Cuba and Brazil, and soon enabled them to rival, 
and greatly surpass England, in the amount of her exports of these 
articles. 

But the investigations which had led to the knowledge of the 
enormities of the slave trade, necessarily exhibited the evils of 
slavery itself. Public opinion decreed the annihilation of both, and 
the British government had no other alternative but to comply. The 
means to which she resorted for the suppression of the slave trade, 
and their failure hitherto, have been already noticed. The measures 
adopted for the emancipation of her West India slaves, have resulted 
still more unfavorably to her interests than those for the extinction 
of the slave trade. 

It was considered absolutely neeessary to the prosperity of Eng- 
land, that she should regain the advantageous position whieh she 
had occupied in being the chief producer of tropical commodities. 
But to effect this, it was necessary that she should be able to double 
the exports from her own Islands, and greatly diminish those of her 
rivals. This could be accomplished, only, by an increase of 
laborers from abroad, or by stimulating those on the Islands to 
double activity in their work. An increase of laborers from abroad 
could only be secured by a resort to the slave trade, which was 
impossible ; or to voluntary emigration from other countries to the 
Islands, which was improbable. The only remaining alternative 
was to render the labor already in the Islands more productive. 



Relations of England to Liberia. 



39 



This could not be done by the whip, as it had already expended its 
force, and could not afford the relief demanded. This position of 
affairs made the government willing to listen to the appeals of the 
friends of West India emancipation. They had long argued that 
free labor was cheaper than slave labor — that one freeman, under 
the stimulus of wages, would do twice the work of a slave com- 
pelled to industry by the whip — that the government, by immediate 
emancipation, could demonstrate the truth of this proposition, and 
thus furnish a powerful ^rgument against slavery — that the world 
should be convinced that the employment of slave labor is a great 
economic error — and that this truth, onee believed, the abolition of 
slavery would every where take place, and the demand for slaves 
being thus destroyed, the slave trade must cease. Parliament, yield- 
ing to these arguments, passed her West India Emancipation act, 
1833, with certain restrictions, by which the liberated slaves were to 
be held by their old masters as apprentices, partly until Aug. 1, 
1838, and partly until Aug. 1, 1840. This apprenticeship system, 
however, being productive of greater cruelties than even slavery, the 
Legislative councils of the Islands, coerced by public sentiment in 
England, were forced to precipitate the final emancipation of the 
slaves, and on Aug. 1, 1838, they were declared free. This act at 
once brought on the crisis in the experiment. The results are 
stated in the following official table, taken from the Westminster 
Review, 1844. 



Sugar 
Exported from 


Average of 

1831-2-3. 

3yrs of Slavery. 


Average of 
1835-6-7. 
3yrs of Apprent'ship. 


"Average of 

1839-40-41. 

3yrs of Freedom. 


St. Vincent, 

Trinidad, 

Jamaica, 

Total W. Indies, 


23,400,000 lbs. 
18,923 tons. 
86,080 hhd. 
3,841,153 cwt. 


22,500,000 lbs. 

18,255 tons. 

62,960 hhd. 

3,477,592 cwt. 


14,100,000 lbs. 

14,828 tons. 

34,415 hhd. 

2,396,784cwt. 



This immense and unexpected reduction of West India products 
under the system of freedom, was cause of great alarm. The 
experiment which was to prove the superiority of free labor over 
that of slave labor had failed. The hope of doubling the exports by 
that means was blasted. $500,000,000* of British capital, invested 
in the Islands, says McQueen, was on the brink of destruction for 
want of laborers to make it available. The English government 
found her commerce greatly lessened, and her home supply of tro- 
pical products falling below the actual wants of her own people. 
This diminution rendered her unable to furnish any surplus for the 
markets of those of her colonies and other countries which she 
formerly supplied. These results at once extended the market for 
slave grown products, and gave a new impulse to the slave trade. 

The government and its advisers now found themselves in the 
mortifying position of having blundered miserably in their emancipa- 
tion scheme, and of having landed themselves in a dilemma of singu- 

* We reckon the pound sterling, here and elsewhere, for_convenience, at live 
dollars. 



40 Relations of England to Liberia 

Jar perplexity. Had England induced, or compelled Portugal, Spain, 
and Brazil, — the latter then no longer a colony but an independent 
nation, — to fulfill the conditions of the treaty declaring the slave trade 
piracy, and also to abolish slavery, she might have succeeded in her 
object. But she did not await the accomplishment of this work 
before she declared the freedom of her own slaves. This act 
resulted so favorably to the interests of those countries employing 
slave labor, by enlarging the markets for slave grown products, that 
the difficulty of inducing them to cease from it, was increased a 
hundred fold. Nor did the expedients to which she resorted prove 
successful in extricating her from the difficulties in which she was 
involved. A duty of near 39 shillings, afterwards raised to 41 
shillings the cwt., or 4j§ pence the pound, levied on slave grown 
sugar — designed to prohibit its importation into England and secure 
the monopoly to the West India planter, thereby enabling him to 
pay higher wages for labor — while it failed to stimulate the activities 
of the freedmen sufficiently to increase the exports to their former 
amount — resulted only in taxing the English people, by the increase 
of prices consequent upon a diminution of the supply, in a single 
year, says Porter in his Progress of Nations, to the enormous amount 
of $25,000,000 more than the inhabitants of other countries paid for 
the same quantity of sugar. This enormous tax accrued during 
1840, from the protective duty, but was greatly above that of any 
other year during its continuance. The whole amount of the bounty 
to the planter, thus drawn from the pockets of the English people 
and placed in those of the West India negro laborers in excessive 
high wages, in the course of six or seven years, says McQueen, 
1844, amounted to $50,000,000. 

The crisis had become so imminent, that energetic measures were 
immediately adopted to guard against the impending danger. Eng- 
land must either regain her advantages in tropical countries and 
tropical products, or she must be shorn of a part of her power and 
greatness. This truth was so fully impressed upon the minds of 
her intelligent statesmen, that one of the best informed on this sub- 
ject, (McQueen,) declared, that 

" If the foreign slave trade be not extinguished, and the cultiva- 
tion of the tropical territories of other powers opposed and checked 
by British tropical cultivation, then the interests and the power of 
such states will rise into a preponderance over those of Great 
Britain ; and the power and the influence of the latter will cease to 
be felt, feared and respected, amongst the civilized and powerful 
nations of the world." 

To relieve the English people from the onerous tax of the sugar 
duties, and at the same time, in obedience to the dictates of public 
opinion, to continue the exclusion of slave groivn products from the 
English markets, sugar, the product of free labor, it was decided, 
should be admitted at a duty of 10 shillings the cwt. But it was 
soon discerned, that this policy would only create a circuitous 
commerce, by which the slave grown sugar of Cuba and Brazil 



Relations of England to Liberia. 41 

would be taken by Holland and Spain, for their own consumption, 
and that of Java and Manilla sent to England ; thus creating a more 
extensive demand for slave grown products and consequently for 
slave labor, and giving to the slave trade an additional impulse in 
an increased demand for slaves. 

The necessity for this continuous supply of slave laborers from 
Africa, for the planters of Cuba and Brazil, will be better understood, 
when the nature of West India and Brazilian slavery is made 
known. When England prohibited the slave trade in 1806, the 
number of slaves in her colonies was 800,000. In twenty-three 
years afterwards, or near the time she emancipated them, they 
numbered but 700,000. The decrease in this period was, therefore, 
100,000; (Memoirs of Buxton). 

The United States, in 1800, had a slave population of 893,000. 
In 1830 she numbered 2,009,000, being an increase of 1,116,000. 
Thus, in thirty years, the United States had an increase of one 
million one hundred and sixteen thousand on a population of 
893,000; while the West Indies, under the English system of 
slavery, with a slave population nearly equal to that of the United 
States, in a period only six years less, suffered an actual decrease 
of one hundred thousand. 

The destruction of human life in the slavery of Cuba and Brazil 
will, doubtless, be equal to what it was formerly in the West Indies, 
inasmuch as the same causes prevail — the great disparity of the 
sexes amongst those brought by slave traders, from Africa, for the 
planters. In the slave population of Cuba this disproportion, says 
McQueen, is 150,000 females to 275,000 males. It is estimated, 
that to keep up the slave population of Cuba and Brazil, will require, 
yearly, 130,000 people from Africa. It is, then, at once apparent, 
that Cuba and Brazil are dependent, as we have said, upon the 
slave trade for keeping up the supply of their laborers; and, that, 
if this annual importation of slaves should be stopped, then, their 
foreign exports would be proportionally lessened and their growing 
prosperity checked. 

Under these circumstances, there could be no doubt, that if Eng- 
land could suppress the slave trade, she would at once cut off the 
supply of laborers furnished by that traffic to Cuba and Brazil, and 
" check " their ability to rival her as producers of tropical com- 
modities; and, further, if she could increase the number of laborers 
in the West Indies sufficiently, she could restore those Islands to 
their former productiveness, and recover her former advantages. 
She, therefore, renewed her efforts for the suppression of the slave 
trade, with greatly increased activity. She also commenced the 
transfer of free laborers from the East Indies and from Africa to the 
West Indies. Every slave trading vessel captured, was made to 
yield up its burden of human beings to the West India planters, 
instead of to those of Cuba and Brazil ; thus securing to the 
former all the advantages of laborers which had been designed for 
the latter. This arrangement was adopted in 1842, and the only 



42 Relations of England to Liberia. 

exception to it was in relation to Spanish slavers, which were to be 
given up, with their cargoes of slaves, to the authorities of Cuba. 
A premium was paid to her naval officers and seamen for all the 
slaves thus captured and transported to her West India Colonies. 
The expenditure for this object, in 1844, says McQueen, had 
amounted to $4,700,000. 

In this movement an intelligent colored man, Mr. William 
Brown, of Oxford, Ohio, has remarked, that England seems to have 
copied the example of the eagle, which disdains to soil his own 
plumage by a plunge in the water, but, as he must have the fish or 
die, makes no scruple of robbing the more daring fish-hawk of its 
prey and appropriating the captive fish to his own use, instead of 
restoring it to its native element. 

All these efforts, however, failed in relieving England from her 
difficulties. The slave trade continued to increase, and the slave 
grown productions to multiply. The number of free laborers trans- 
ported as emigrants from Africa and the East Indies, or captured 
from the slave traders, and landed in the Islands, were so few, 
comparatively, as to make no sensible difference in the amount of 
West India productions, and the scheme, though still continued, has 
failed of its main object — the increase of British West India pro- 
ductions. Some other means of replacing England in her former 
position, must, therefore, be devised. 

But let us look a moment, before we proceed, at the West Indies, 
and learn more fully, the extent and nature of the influences which 
have gone forth upon the world as the result of West India Eman- 
cipation and British policy and philanthropy. 

It seems to have been a great error of judgment in the British 
philanthropists, who urged West India Emancipation upon the 
ground that free labor would be more productive than slave labor, 
— that a freeman, under the stimulus of icages, would do twice the 
labor of a slave toiling beneath the lash: because this proposition is 
true only in reference to men of intelligence and forethought, but is 
untrue when applied to an ignorant and degraded class of men. 
The ox under the yoke, or the mule in the harness, when spurred 
on by the goad or the whip, will do more labor than when turned 
out to shiff for themselves. So it will be with any barbarous people, 
or with the mass of such a slave population as the West Indies then 
included ; where but little more care had been taken of the greater 
portion of them than if they had been mere brute beasts, and not moral 
agents. If any higher estimate had been put upon them, than as mere 
machines to be used in the production of tropical commodities, then 
it had been impossible for their numbers to have been reduced one 
hundred thousand in so short a period as before stated. 

The first impulse of the heart of the more intelligent slaves, when 
they awoke to a consciousness of freedom, would prompt them to 
withdraw their wives, daughters, and younger children, from the 
sugar plantations, that the mothers might attend to their household 
duties, and the children be sent to school. This would deprive the 



Relations of England to Liberia. 43 

planters of much of the labor upon which they had depended. The 
men, too, would many of them prefer mechanical pursuits, or confine 
themselves to the cultivation of small portions of land, and decline 
laboring for their old masters, in whose presence they must still 
have felt a sense of inferiority. Many, from sheer indolence and 
recklessness of consequences, would only labor when necessity com- 
pelled them to seek a supply of their wants. The marriages taking 
place would withdraw still more of the laborers from the fields, and 
reduce the amount of the products of the Islands. 

While, therefore, the ease, comfort, and welfare, of the colored 
man was secured, the interests of the planters were almost ruined by 
'emancipation, and the influence and power of England put in 
jeopardy. Little did the 700,000 West India freedmen, who 
refused to labor regularly for the planters, think, when following 
their own inclinations, or lounging at their ease under the shade trees 
of these sunny Islands, that their want of industry, their reluctance 
to go back to the sugar mills, for the wages offered, was crippling 
the power of one of the greatest empires on earth, and robbing Africa 
of 400,000 of her children, annually, to supply to the world, from 
Cuba and Brazil, those very commodities which they were refusing 
to produce. Yet such was the fact, and such the mysterious links 
connecting man with his fellow, that the want of ambition in the 
West India freedman to earn more than a subsistence, depriving the 
planters of the necessary free labor to keep up the usual amount of 
exports, created a corresponding demand for slave grown products, 
and robbed Africa, in each two years thereafter, of a number of men 
more than equal to the whole of the slaves emancipated in the 
British Islands. 

There would seem, then, to have been but little gain to the cause 
of humanity by West India Emancipation. This view of its results, 
however, would be very erroneous. On the contrary, there is 
exhibited here, in this result, another mysterious link in the chain of 
events connected with the redemption of Africa. The failure of the 
West India experiment, has been a failure, only, of England's ex- 
periment adopted to restore herself to her former position and her 
former advantages, and will not retard the onward progress of the 
cause of humanity. It has, on the contrary, no doubt greatly tended 
to precipitate upon the world the solution of a problem of the first 
importance in the great work of its recovery from barbarism. It 
must now be admitted that mere personal liberty, even connected 
with the stimulus of high wages, is insufficient to secure the indus- 
try of an ignorant population. It is Intelligence, alone, that can be 
acted upon by such motives. Intelligence must precede voluntary 
Industry. This proposition, we claim, has been fairly proved in 
the West India experiment. And, hereafter, that man or nation, 
may find it difficult to command respect or succeed in being esteemed 
wise, who will not, along with exertions to extend personal freedom 
to men, intimately blend with their efforts adequate means for 
intellectual and moral improvement. The West India colored 



44 Relations of England to Liberia. 

population, now released from the restraints of slavery, and accessible 
to the missionaries and teachers, sent to them from English Chris- 
tians, are rising in intelligence and respectability ,- and, thus, West 
India emancipation has been productive of infinite advantage to them, 
though English capitalists may have been ruined by the act. But 
we will go further, and give it as our deliberate opinion, that as soon 
as intelligence and morality, growing out of the religious training 
now enjoyed, shall sufficiently prevail, the amount of products raised 
in the West Indies will greatly exceed that yielded under the system 
of slavery. Liberty and Religion can make its inhabitants as pros- 
perous and happy as those of any other spot on earth. We do not 
say, however, that this can take place while they sustain the posi- 
tion of vassals of the British crown, and their importance in the scale 
of being continues to be estimated according to the extent to which 
they can add to its prosperity and its glory. 

Had the West India colored men, under the stimulus of freedom 
and high wages each performed twice the labor of a slave, as they, 
no doubt, might have done, and as was confidently anticipated by the 
enthusiastic friends of emancipation, more than twice the products 
of former years would have been exported from the Islands, and 
England, in that event, restored to her former position, and looking 
only to self aggrandizement, would have remained content, and con- 
tinued to employ men as mere machines, as she heretofore had done, 
nor cared for their intellectual and moral elevation. But the failure 
of England in the West Indies, forced her to renewed efforts for the 
acquisition of additional tropical possessions, where, with better 
prospects of success, she could bring free labor into competition 
with slave labor. 

Before tracing the movements of Great Britain, however, in her 
prosecution of this enterprise, let us again look a moment at her 
position. "Instead of supplying her own wants with tropical pro- 
ductions, and next nearly all Europe, as she formerly did, she had 
scarcely enough, says McQueen, 1844, of some of the most impor- 
tant articles, for her own consumption, while her colonies were 
mostly supplied with foreign slave produce." " In the mean time 
tropical productions had been increased from $75,000,000 to $300,- 
000,000 annually. The English capital invested in tropical pro- 
ductions in the East and West Indies, had been, by emancipation in 
the latter, reduced from $750,000,000 to $650,000,000 ; while, since 
1808, on the part of foreign nations $4,000,000,000 of fixed capital 
had been created in slaves and in cultivation wholly dependent upon 
the labor of slaves." * The odds, therefore, in agricultural and com- 
mercial capital and. interest, and consequently in political power and 
influence, arrayed against the British tropical possessions, were very 
fearful — six to one.' 

This, then, was the position of England from 1840 to 1844, and 
these the forces marshalled against her, and which she must meet and 
combat. In all her movements hitherto, she had only added to the 
strength of her rivals. Her first step, the suppression of the slave 



Relations of England to Liberia. 45 

trade,' had diminished her West India laborers 100,000 in twenty- 
three years, and reduced her means of production to that extent, 
giving all the benefits, arising from this and from the slave trade, to 
rival nations, who have but too well improved their advantages. But, 
besides her commercial sacrifices, she had expended 8100,000,000 
to remunerate the planters for the slaves emancipated, and another 
$100,000,000 for an armed repression of the slave trade. And yet, 
in all this enormous expenditure, resulting only in loss to England, 
Africa had received no advantage whatever, but, on the contrary, she 
had been robbed, since 1808, of at least, 3,500,000 slaves, (McQueen) 
who had been exported to Cuba and Brazil from her coast, making 
a total loss to Africa, by the rule of Buxton, of 11,660,000 human 
beings, or one million more than the whole white population of the 
United States in 1830, and more than three times the number of our 
present slave population. 

Now, it was abundantly evident, that Great Britain was impelled 
by an overpowering necessity, by the instinct of self-preservation, to 
attempt the suppression of the slave trade. It was true, no doubt, 
that considerations of justice and humanity were among the motives 
which influenced her actions. Interest and duty were, therefore, 
combined to stimulate her to exertion. The measures to be adopted 
to secure success, were also becoming more apparent. Few other 
nations are guided by statesmen more quick to perceive the best 
course to adopt in an emergency, and none more readily abandon a 
scheme as soon as it proves impracticable. Great Britain stood 
pledged to her own citizens and to the world for the suppression of 
the slave trade. She stood equally pledged to demonstrate, that free 
labor can be made more productive than slave labor, even in the 
cultivation of tropical commodities. These pledges she could not 
deviate from nor revoke. Her interests as well as her honor were 
deeply involved in their fulfillment. But she could only demonstrate 
the greater productiveness of free labor over slave labor, by opposing 
the one to the other, in their practical operations on a scale coexten- 
sive with each other. She must produce tropical commodities so 
cheaply and so abundantly, by free labor, that she could undersell 
slave-grown products to such an extent, and glut the markets of the 
world with them so fully, as to render it unprofitable any longer to 
employ slaves in tropical cultivation. Such an enterprise, success- 
fully carried out, would be a death blow to slavery and the slave 
trade. " But," says McQueen, " there remained no portion of the 
tropical world, where labor could be had on the spot, and whereon 
Great Britain could conveniently and safely plant her foot, in order to 
accomplish this desirable object — extensive tropical cultivation — but 
in tropical Africa. Every other part was occupied by independent 
nations, or by people that might and would soon become independent." 
Africa, therefore, was the field upon which Great Britain was compelled 
to enter and to make her second grand experiment. Her citizens 
were becoming convinced that it was unwise, if not unjust, to abstract 
aborers, even as free emigrants, from Africa, to be employed in other 



46 Relations of England to Liberia. 

parts of the world, when their labor might be employed to much 
better advantage in Africa itself. The government could, therefore, 
safely resort to some modification of her former policy. To confine 
her efforts for the recovery of her prosperity, within the limits of her 
own tropical possessions, would be to abandon the vast regions of 
tropical Africa to other nations, and thus permit them, by taking 
possession of it, to redouble the advantages over her which they 
already possessed. By employing the labor of Africa within Africa, 
she would cut off* the supply of laborers derived by other nations 
from the slave trade, and would have an advantage over them, not 
only of the capital expended in the transportation of slaves from 
Africa, but she would have a gain of seven-tenths in the saving of 
human life now destroyed by the slave trade. British capital, 
instead of being directly and indirectly employed in the slave trade, 
as has been abundantly shown by the Hon. Mr. Wise, late American 
minister to Brazil, could be more honorably and safely invested in 
the cultivation of the richer fields of tropical Africa. 

In her West India experiment, however, England had been taught 
the all-important lesson, that intelligence must precede voluntary 
industry. Her Niger expedition of 1842, already noticed, was 
based upon this principle, and hence the extensive preparations 
connected with that movement, for the improvement of the intelligence 
and morals and industry of the natives. But the terrible mortality 
which destroyed that enterprise taught her another lesson, that white 
men cannot fulfill the agency of Africa's intellectual elevation. 
Since that period, England has been mostly occupied with the settle- 
ment of her difficulties with China, and her war with the Sikhs of 
India, and she has made but little progress in her African affairs ; 
excepting by explorations into the interior and negociations with the 
powers interested in the slave trade. 

In the meantime the colony of Liberia had been pursuing its quiet 
and unostentatious course, and working out the problem of the colored 
man's capability for self-government. The active industry of that 
handful of men, had created a commerce of much importance, and 
supplied exports to the value of $100,000 annually. Its declaration 
of independence was published to the world at a period the most 
auspicious. France, under those generous impulses so characteristic 
of her people, had herself trampled the last relics of despotism in the 
dust, and declared the Republic. Great as she herself is, she did not 
despise the little African republic, but, extending her view down the 
stream of time, discerned in it the germ of future empire and greatness, 
and therefore, she welcomed it into the family of nations. But lest, 
in its feebleness, it should receive a wound to its honor, or an injury 
to its commerce, from an attack of the dealers in human flesh infesting 
its borders, with distinguished liberality she offered the use of her 
war vessels for their destruction. 

England, too, found herself in a position inclining her to favor the 
young republic ; nay, not only inclining but imposing upon her the 
necessity of promoting its welfare. Impelled by her own interests 



Relations of England to Liberia. 47 

and wants, to secure extensive tropical cultivation, by free labor, in 
Africa, she had been surveying the whole vast field of that continent, 
the only country now remaining where her grand experiment could 
be commenced, and found much of it already occupied. Fiance, fully 
alive to the importance of the commerce with Africa, had, within a 
short period, securely placed herself at the mouth of the Senegal and 
at Goree, extending her influence eastward and southeastward from 
both places. She had a settlement at Albreda, on the Gambia, a short 
distance above St. Mary's, and which commands that river. She had 
formed a settlement at the mouth of the Gaboon, and another near 
the chief mouth of the Niger. She had fixed herself at Massuah 
and Bure, on the west shore of the Red Sea, commanding the inlets 
into Abyssinia. She had endeavored to fix her flag at Brava and the 
mouth of the Jub, and had taken permanent possession of the im- 
portant island of Johanna, situated in the center of the northern outlet 
of the Mozambique channel, by which she acquired its command. 
Her active agents were placed in southern Abyssinia, and employed 
in traversing the borders of the Great White Nile ; while Algiers on 
the northern shores of Africa, must speedily be her own. Spain had 
planted herself, since the Niger expedition, in the island of Fernando 
Po, which commands all the outlets of the Niger and the rivers, from 
Cameroons to the equator. Portugal witnessing these movements, 
had taken measures to revive her once fine and still important colon- 
ies in tropical Africa. They included 17° of latitude on the east 
coast, from the tropic of Capricorn to Zanzibar, and nearly 19° on the 
west coast, from the 20th° south latitude, northward to cape Lopez. 
The Imaum of Muscat claimed the sovereignty on the east coast, from 
Zanzibar to Babelmandel,with the exception of the station of the 
French at Brava. From the Senegal northward to Algeria was in the 
possession of the independent Moorish princes. Tunis, Tripoli, and 
Egypt were north of the tropic of Cancer, and independent tributaries 
of Turkey. 

Here, then, all the eastern and northern coasts of Africa, and also 
the west coast from the Gambia northwards, was found to be in the 
actual possession of independent sovereignties, who, of course, 
would not yield the right to England. Southern Africa, below the 
tropic of Capricorn, already belonging to England, though only the 
same distance south of the equator that Cuba and Florida are north 
of it, is highly elevated above the sea-level, and not adapted to tropical 
productions. The claims of Portugal on the west coast, before 
noticed, extending from near the British south African line to Cape 
Lopez, excluded England from that district. From Cape Lopez 
to the mouth of the Niger, including the Gaboon and Fernando 
Po, as before stated, was under the control of the French and 
Spanish. 

The only territory, therefore, not claimed by civilized countries, 
which could be made available to England for her great scheme of 
tropical cultivation, was that between the Niger and Liberia, embra- 
cing nearly fourteen degrees of longitude. But this territory includes 



48 Relations of England to Liberia. 

the powerful kingdom of Dahomey and that of Ashantee, whose 
right to the sovereignty of the soil could not, probably, be purchased, 
as was that of the former petty kings on the line of coast occupied 
by Liberia. Their territory, however, and that of Liberia, together 
with the whole of the vast basin of the Niger, under the hand of 
industry could be made to teem with those productions, the command 
of which were of such essential importance to England. But both 
Dahomey and Ashantee were engaged in the slave trade, and, like 
other parts of the continent, nine-tenths of the population held as 
slaves. — (Dr. Goheen.) This territory, therefore, could not be 
made available to England until she could succeed in securing the 
discontinuance of their connection with the slave trade and the abolition 
of their system of slavery; and not even then, as we have before proved, 
until intelligence should be introduced and diffused and industry begot- 
ten — a work of generations. But negotiations in relation to these ob- 
jects had been commenced, says M'Queen, in 1844, under favorable 
auspices, and the king of Dahomey had agreed to abolish the slave 
trade, and had favorably received some Wesleyan missionaries. 
England has, since that period, successfully exerted her influence in 
other quarters for its suppression. In the British House of Com- 
mons, lately, Lord Palmerston announced, that the Bey of Tunis had 
abandoned within his dominions, not merely the slave trade but slav- 
ery itself — that the Sultan of Turkey had prohibited the slave trade 
amono- his subjects in the eastern seas — that the Imaum of Muscat 
had abolished it within certain latitudes — that the Arabian Chiefs in 
the Persian Gulf have also abandoned it — and that the Shah of Persia 
has prohibited it throughout his dominions. Thus, then, though the 
system of an armed repression of the slave trade has entirely failed, 
as before shown, yet the hope is springing up that it may soon be so 
circumscribed that its extermination can be more easily effected by 
encirclinc the remaining parts of the coast with Christian colonies. 
But all these movements, important as they are to the cause of 
humanity, do not, in the least, check the slave trade with Cuba and 
Brazil, and the reason seems to be this : the slave trade is not a 
business by itself, and the slave traders are not a distinct class of men. 
The trade is so mixed up with the general business of the world, 
that it can derive facilities from the most innocent commercial trans- 
actions. In Brazil it is neither unlawful nor disreputable, and, it is said 
that nobody abstains from it, or from dealing with those concerned in 
it, from any fear of law, scruples of conscience, or regard of charac- 
ter ; and that to trade with Brazil at all is to trade with a slave trader, 
or with some one who deals freely with slave traders. Hence, Eng- 
lish capitalists in loaning money in Brazil, or English manufacturers 
in fillino" orders for goods from Brazil, are furnishing facilities for the 
slave traders to prosecute their infamous pursuits. The ship-builders 
of the United States, in selling fast-sailing merchant vessels to Brazil- 
ians, are furnishing to slave traders the means for transporting slaves 
from Africa. Thus British capital and industry and American skill, 
thouo-h, to the superficial observer, employed in a lawful way, are 



Relations of England to Liberia. 49 

indirectly furnishing the means for the prosecution of the slave trade, 
and affording facilities to those engaged directly in it, which, if with- 
drawn, would greatly embarrass their operations, and make it much 
less difficult to suppress it. Nor has the success of England, in 
securing the above named acts for the suppression of the slave trade, 
accomplished anything in her great work of extensive tropical free 
labor cultivation in Africa, as the means upon which she relies to 
recover her former position, and to break down the prosperity of her 
rivals. 

In Sierra Leone, the commercial affairs being in the hands of white 
men, has prevented that advancement in industry, and in the know- 
ledge of business among the colored population, which must exist, 
before habits of active industry will be adopted by them. But in 
Liberia all the business is in the hands of colored men, and some of 
them have accumulated fortunes. Their success has encouraged 
others to follow their example, and industry is beginning to prevail. 
The'great work of tropical cultivation by free labor has been success- 
fully commenced by the Freemen of Liberia. Tropical products 
have been exported in small quantities, from the colony to England. 
Its coffee was found to be superior to that of all other countries, except 
Mocha, and about equal to it. The coffee tree, in Liberia, produces 
double the quantity, annually, which that of the West Indies bears. 
Its cotton, a native of its forests, is of a superior quality. Its capacity 
for producing sugar has been tested, and found equal to any other 
country. Capital and labor only are required to make Liberia more 
than rival Louisiana, because frosts never touch its crops, and labor- 
ers will not be thrown idle in the former, from that cause, as they are 
in the latter. Such is the nature of the soil and climate of Liberia, and 
such the easy cultivation of the products used for food, that the labor 
of a man, one third of his time, will supply him with necessary sub- 
sistence, leaving him the remaining two-thirds for mental improvement 
and to cultivate articles for export. An industrious man in Liberia 
must, therefore, become rich, and able to indulge his taste for the 
elegancies of life, leading him to the purchase of foreign commodities. 
Liberia, therefore, offered to England a field in which she could at 
once commence her experiment. All that is needed in Liberia to 
develop its resources, and to give it the ascendancy over all other 
portions of the tropical world, is capital and labor. The first can be 
abundantly supplied by England ; the second by the United States and 
Africa. But African labor, beyond the limits of the colony where 
intelligence prevails, cannot be made productive until the education of 
the natives has been undertaken. This work, if extended very rapid- 
ly, must be performed, in a good degree, by emigrant teachers and 
missionaries from the United States. Hence the wisdom of the policy 
of England in now favoring our colony. We can supply teachers to 
aid in civilizing Africa. Great Britain cannot, and, disconnected from 
our colony, she cannot create intelligence and industry, and there- 
fore, cannot, at present, commence her scheme of extensive tropical 
cultivation without the aid of Liberia. 
4 



50 Relations of England to Liberia. 

Here, now, we claim, is the solution of the question of England's pres- 
ent liberality toward Liberia. Her own interests and purposes, demand 
an early demonstration of the practicability of employing free labor 
in opposition to slave labor, on an extensive scale, in tropical Africa. 
Her own African colonies have been, says McQueen, very injudicious- 
ly selected for extending an influence into Africa. But the position of 
Liberia is much more favorable, and will enable her, perhaps, from 
the head of the St. Pauls, to reach across the Kong mountains, and 
grasp the tributaries of the upper Niger, and, connecting the two 
rivers by rail-road, secure the commerce of the interior to the capital 
of the Republic, as the cities of New York and Philadelphia have 
secured that of the Mississippi valley. 

England, therefore, at the moment that President Roberts visited 
London, found herself in a position compelling her to a change of 
policy toward our colony. Liberia at that moment, was the only 
territory under heaven, where could be commenced, immediately, 
her darling scheme of extensive tropical cultivation by free labor. 
And Liberia only, of all the territory that might be made available, 
contained the elements of success, — intelligence and industry. 
Here was England's position and here Liberia's. The old Empire, 
shaken by powerful rivals, and driven to extremity, was seeking a 
prop of sufficient strength to support her. The young Republic in 
the feebleness of infancy was needing a protector. That secret, 
unseen, hidden, invincible, and all-controlling Power, which had 
impelled England onward in her giant efforts to extirpate the slave 
trade and to abolish slavery, and which had inspired the hearts of 
American Christians to restore the colored man to Africa, and had 
watched over and protected the feeble colony until it could assume a 
national position ; that Providence which had made England's crimes 
of former years, to react upon and embarrass her in all her relations, 
had now brought, face to face, the Prime Minister ol England and the 
President of the Republic of Liberia. The first, was the representative 
of that once unscrupulous but powerful government, whose participa- 
tion in the slave trade, to build up an extensive commerce and to ag- 
grandize herself, had doomed the children of Africa to perpetual bond- 
age; but who was now, as a consequence of that very slave trade, 
compelled to the most powerful exertions for its suppression, to save 
herself from commercial embarrassment and national decline : the se- 
cond, was the Executive of a new Nation — himself a descendant of 
one of the victims of the English slave traders — seeking the admis- 
sion of an African Republic into the family of nations. The old 
Monarchy and the new Republic thus found themselves standing in 
the relation to each other of mutual dependence — the one, to secure 
a field for the immediate commencement of her grand experiment of 
rendering free labor more productive than slave labor, and of creating 
new markets for her manufactures, — the other, to obtain protection 
and to offer the products of the labor of the freemen of Liberia to 
the commerce of the world. 

But it may be asked, why Great Britain should be willing to aid 



Relations of England to Liberia. 51 

Liberia in extending her influence over Africa, and thus introduce into 
the world a new nation who, as soon as its eighty millions of people 
are civilized and stimulated to industry, can have the preponderance 
over all the world in tropical productions, and consequently, have 
the means of acquiring power and influence in the world equal to that 
of other nations. The solution of this question is not difficult. 

The policy of Great Britain, for a long period, caused her to grasp 
after foreign colonial possessions, and her glory and her strength was 
believed to be measured by the extent to which she could multiply 
her foreign dependencies. When her manufacturing interests began 
to multiply, she found a great stimulus to this branch of her national 
resources, in the markets furnished by her colonies. The increased 
commerce thus created, furnished another channel for the employment 
of British capital and enterprise. The multitude of sailors required 
for the merchant service, were readily transferred to her navy in 
times of war, and gave her immense power on the ocean. • But the 
unfortunate attempt of England,' says McCulloch, in his statistical 
account of the British Empire, to compel the American colonists ' to 
contribute toward the revenue of the empire, terminating so disas- 
trously, has led her ever since to renounce all attempts to tax her 
colonies for any purpose, except that of their own internal government 
and police.' Colonies, therefore, have since been cherished chiefly 
on account of the outlets they afford to her surplus population; the 
field they offer to private adventurers for the acquisition of fortunes, 
to be afterwards transferred to the mother country; the increase they 
add to her commerce ; the markets which they furnish for her manu- 
factures ; and the agricultural or mineral products which they supply, 
in return, for consumption and use in England. 

An opinion, however, is beginning to possess the public mind in 
England, that the possession of colonies is not of the especial 
importance to her that they were once considered. The expenditure 
for their government and defence often outweighs the political and 
commercial advantages realized from their possession. It is now 
believed, that her commercial and manufacturing interests can be as 
well if not better promoted, by a liberal commerce with independent 
states, than with colonies under her own control. This conviction 
has been forced upon the English, chiefly by the results which have 
followed the Independence of the United States. The British go- 
vernment now derives ten times more advantage, says McCulloch, 
from intercourse with the United States, than when she had a 
Governor in every state, or than she has derived from all her other 
colonies put together. In a more comprehensive view of British 
relations, by Porter, in his Progress of Nations, we find it stated, 
that, in 1837, the exports of Great Britain to the United States 
amounted to more than half the sum of her shipments to the whole 
of Europe, while of her entire foreign exports, amounting to $235,- 
000,000, only one-third was consumed by her colonies. 

But as other governments have arisen and attained stability, and 
encouragement has been afforded by them to home industry, the 



52 Relations of England to Liberia. 

instinct of self preservation has led to the adoption of such restric- 
tive duties as would protect their people, in the infancy of their 
manufacturing efforts, against the superiority in machinery, capital 
and skill of older nations. In this way England has been so much 
restricted, from time to time, in her commercial operations, that, in 
1844, (Westminster Review) her exports to the European states, 
notwithstanding their vast increase of population, were considerably 
less than they had been forty years ago. 

But England has been embarrassed, not only by the restrictive 
duties of other governments, but many of them are beginning to rival 
her, in the sale of' manufactures, in those countries whose markets 
are still open to foreign competition. This rivalry in manufactures 
is one of more serious import to Great Britain than even the rivalry 
which opposes her in tropical productions. The latter is to her as 
the arteries, the former the heart. The truth of this assertion will 
be seen in the following statements. 

The great leading interest of England, — her principal dependence 
for the maintainance of her power and influence, — is her manufac- 
tures. Out of this interest grows her immense commerce, and from 
her commerce arises her ability to sustain her vast navy, giving to 
her such a controlling influence in the affairs of the world. ' Wealth, 
civilization, and knowledge, add rapidly and indefinitely to the 
powers of manufacturing and commercial industry.' All these Great 
Britain possesses in an eminent degree. ' It is asserted that the 
manufactures of England could, in a short time, be made to quadruple 
their produce — that so vast is the power which the steam engine has 
added to the means of production in commercial industry, that it is 
susceptible of almost indefinite and immediate extension — that 
Manchester and Glasgow could, in a few years, prepare themselves 
for furnishing muslin and cotton goods to the whole world — that with 
England the great difficulty always felt is, not to get hands to keep 
pace with the demand of the consumers, but to get a demand to keep 
pace with the hands employed in the production.'' 

With such resources and capabilities, and with such interests 
involved in their development and extension — interests involving the 
very existence of the empire — England is not to be easily defeated 
in her purposes. When restricted or excluded from one market, 
she speedily seeks or creates another. The intelligence, the enter- 
prise, and the energies, of her subjects, are called forth by govern- 
ment, and made subservient to the promotion of her interests and the 
extension of her commerce and her power. The desert or savage 
Islands of the sea; the bulwarks of India, or the walls of China; 
the frozen regions of the north, or the tropical suns, of the south, 
present few obstacles to her enterprise. Nor need we stop to prove, 
in detail, that the almost irresistible energies of Great Britain, thus 
put forth, and embracing in their range all the earth, find their chief 
motive power in her desire to extend the sale of her manufactures . 
Crush her manufactures, and the throne will soon totter to its fall. 
But what gives a tenfold interest and importance to her enterprises, 



Relations of England to Liberia. 53 

is, that wherever she goes, wherever her standard is planted, a 
Christian Civilization, though forming no part of her design, 
almost invariably follows her conquest of, or treaty with, a pagan 
nation or a savage tribe. The greatness of England, and her con- 
sequent necessities, are thus compelling her to the fulfillment of a 
mission of vast moment to the world ; and in its execution she seems 
likely to be driven from point to point until she completes the earth's 
circuit. Though she " meaneth not so," yet she may emphatically 
be called the great agent for the extension of civilization. She 
is now, it seems, compelled to expend her energies upon Africa, so 
as to secure to herself the advantages arising from its civilization. 
Two hundred thousand of her own subjects are now annually emi- 
grating to other countries. This is to England an annual loss of 
two hundred thousand laborers, whom she cannot profitably employ 
at home. But were the hordes of barbarians in tropical Africa 
civilized, and engaged in developing its immense resources, the 
demand created in the supply of their wants would furnish labor for 
all unemployed English subjects, and add immensely to the pros- 
perity of Great Britain. 

It will now be seen that England is not only interested in encour- 
aging the cultivation of tropical productions by Liberia, as a means 
of destroying the slave trade and slavery, and of crippling the 
energies of her rivals, but that she is also most deeply interested in 
securing the markets which Liberia will open up in Africa for 
English manufactures. Tropical Africa can never afford an outlet 
for European emigration, and can, therefore, be of no importance to 
England for that purpose. Its commercial advantages can be as well 
secured in the hands of independent states, as if England had posses- 
sion of it as colonies. Great Britain, therefore, can, consistently with 
her policy and her interests, employ her influence and her power in 
promoting the welfare of Liberia. Nay, more, it will be seen, when 
all the facts stated are' considered, that she is compelled, by her own 
necessities, to use the most energetic measures for the speedy exten- 
sion of the influence and the sovereignty of the Republic of Liberia, 
as the point where she can, at the earliest period, commence her 
important experiment. Other points hereafter, may, and no doubt 
will be speedily made subservient to her purpose, but Liberia is her only 
present reliance for the commencement of her great work. Civiliza- 
tion is here already introduced and begins to radiate into the interior, 
and only needs the necessary aid and time to extend its blessings 
throughout Africa. 

It is true, that England will have rivals, in the sale of her manu- 
factures, in Liberia. She cares but little for that, however, because 
her facilities for manufacturing are, at present, and must be for years 
to come, so much superior to that of all other countries, that she can 
successfully rival them, even in their own markets, when not embar- 
rassed by tariffs. She has taken good care to make the first treaty 
of commerce and amity with Liberia, and thus stands in the fore- 
ground, as the friend of the young Republic. 



54 Relations of England to Liberia. 

Now, then, we repeat, without the fear of successful contradiction, 
that Great Britain finds herself in a position, at this moment, so 
disadvantageous, both in her relations to tropical cultivation and in 
the sale of her manufactures, that her only present means of extrica- 
tion is in the success of Liberia," and that she is, therefore, vitally 
interested in having the young Republic extend its influence, with all 
possible rapidity, over the continent of Africa ; so as, at the earliest 
practicable day, to have her eighty millions of naked or half-clothed 
inhabitants subjected to civilization, stimulated to industry, clothed in 
British fabrics, and, in return, producing abundantly those tropical 
products now become absolutely necessary, for the manufactures, the 
luxuries, and the necessities of life, amongst the civilized nations of 
the temperate zones. And with such interests involved in the suc- 
cess of Liberia, and with such power and influence enlisted in her 
support, humanly speaking, how can our Colonization scheme fail ? 

But we must hasten to a conclusion of this protracted discussion, and leave many 
points of additional interest untouched. Indeed nothing but the great importance of 
the bearings of the questions which have been investigated, can justify the occupa- 
tion of so much time.* The cause of humanity, however, demands that attention 
shall be given to these topics. Africa has long groaned hopelessly to be delivered 
from the deluge of woes which has for ages rolled over her. The dawn of her re- 
demption is now appearing.. The light of civilization and Christianity has broken 
forth upon her shores and begins to dispel the gloom of centuries. The slave traders, 
like so many spirits of darkness, are compelled to limit their hellish labors to districts 
yet unillumined by that light. Nothing seems to be wanting to the accomplishment 
of Africa's redemption but a sufficient increase of the agencies which have already 
been productive of such rich fruits in Liberia. These agencies are being rapidly 
called into action. The Providence of God is operating upon the nations, most di- 
rectly concerned in the question of Africa's future destiny, so as to make it their in- 
terest to faVor the civilization of the inhabitants of that continent. Great Britain, as 
already shown, is enlisted by considerations, commercial and manufacturing, which 
she never overlooks, to aid in this great work of philanthropy. She can supply un- 
limited sums of money to stimulate enterprise and industry, and to promote civiliza- 
tion in Africa, and she will do it as fast as it can be profitably employed. 

The people of France, having achieved their own liberties, soon pronounced the 
freedom of the slaves in their islands. France did not wait to calculate the political 
and commercial considerations involved in emancipation, before she obeyed the dic- 
tates of humanity. Herself free, she desired the freedom of the world. Having pos- 
session of many important points on the coast of Africa, she will crush the slave 
trade wherever she has control, and thus greatly aid in its suppression and in the 
promotion of African civilization. But as she has not within herself, the command 
of the agencies necessary to civilize the districts which she owns, she may find herself 
compelled to call upon the colored people of the United States to commence and carry 
on the work, and thus promote our colonization enterprise. And as France has al- 
ready proved herself capable of acts of the greatest magnanimity, we must ask of her 
one favor, though it may seem, in us, an act of presumption. But as an American 
Republican, we can appeal to French Republicans. It is of the utmost importance to 
the Republic of Liberia, that it should have guaranteed to it, by other nations, the 
right to purchase and annex the whole line of* oast from Sierra Leone to Cape Lo- 
pez, so that no other power may be allowed to interfere with the extension of its 
jurisdiction over that region. The Gaboon, now in the possession of France, lies at 
the southeastern limits of this region, and is one of the most valuable points in Africa. 
We ask of France, therefore, that she shall offer the Gaboon country, as a free gift, 
to the free colored people of the United States, upon which to form a new state in 
connexion with Liberia. And, from the circumstances under which her title to this 



Concluding Remarks. 55 

territory was acquired, during the Monarchy, it is believed that the Republic, when 
the subject is presented for its consideration, will yield it for that purpose. 

The United States is also deeply interested in the success of Liberia, and is being 
involved in difficulties and perplexities propelling her onward to a point where she, 
too, must exert herself in behalf of the young Republic. Commercial and manu- 
facturing interests will influence her, as they have already influenced Great Britain. 
But in addition to these, other considerations of far deeper import will soon press 
themselves upon our attention. The rapid increase of our slave population is begin- 
ning to alarm the stoutest advocates of the perpetuation of slavery. With their 
uniform ratio of increase continued, which, it will be remembered, is three per cent, 
per annum, in 50 years, from 1850, the slave population of the United States, will 
number 12,000,000, with an annual increase of 360,000. In 100 years hence, they 
will have increased to 44,500,000, with an annual increase of 1,300,000. And in 
150 years their numbers will be 165,000,000, and the yearly increase 5,000,000. 

Now, it is utterly impossible that this number of slaves can be held in bondage, 
Or be profitably employed, by the southern states of our union, for half the period 
included in our calculation. But how emancipation is to be ultimately effected, we 
cannot foretell. This we know, that it must be done. The South is becoming aware 
of the difficulties of the future of slavery, and are beginning to look at its appalling 
consequences. Many states have already legislated to prevent the sale and transfer of 
the slaves of the more northern states into their bounds, and it would not be unexpected, 
if, in a few years, the slave holders of the more northern slave states, should be unable 
to find a market for their surplus slaves. And whenever this event occurs, the masters 
will soon be over-supplied with laborers which they cannot employ profitably, and 
emancipation must take place. And when ever this work commences, the work of 
Colonization to Africa will be greatly increased. Liberia, therefore, is to the south- 
ern states, as well as to those of the north, and to the nations of Europe, a point of very 
great interest. Not one of them, scarcely, can carry out their present policy without 
promoting the interests of our colony. In these facts we find an additional argument 
for the perpetuity of the Republic of Liberia. 

And further, if the scheme of tropical cultivation in Africa, by free labor, can be 
successfully carried out, at an early day, and of which we entertain but little doubt, 
the work of emancipation in this country may be forced to a consummation much 
more rapidly than many suppose. The United States, it must be borne in mind, have 
not one acre of tropical lands. Our crops of cotton and sugar, are both liable to 
blight, by frosts, before they are fully matured and secured. But it is not so in 
Africa. More than three fourths of the lands of that vast continent are within the 
tropics, and secure from the action of frosts. The employment of capital, in tropical 
cultivation in Africa, would long since have been extended to millions upon millions 
of dollars, but for the error committed in attempting it by white men and amongst 
an uncivilized people. This error is now detected and will not be repeated. The 
American Colonization Society has, by its efforts, dispelled the doubts and difficulties 
overhanging the question of African Civilization. Capital, in a few years, can 
be employed more profitably in Liberia than in the United States. Capital and labor 
will soon both find their way to Africa, and perhaps in modes not now anticipated. 
It is no uncommon occurrence now, for a slave holder, in this country, to let his 
slave out on parole, to earn a fixed price, upon the payment of which to the master, 
the slave is a freeman. It is very rare, in such cases, that a breach of faith occurs. 
Now, it may not be long, if the southern market should be closed against the sale of 
northern slaves, before this system of self-emancipation may be carried out upon a 
grand scale, by masters bargaining with their slaves to emigrate to Liberia, there 
to earn the price of their freedom. Such an arrangement would add to the amount 
of free labor products which must come*into competition with those of the slave labor 
of our southern states. In this way Kentucky and Virginia could retaliate, with 
fearful effect, upon South Carolina and Louisiana. 

But, as we hasten to a conclusion, we can only throw out suggestions without 
waiting to dwell upon them. We are fully aware, that the idea that tropical culti- 
vation in Africa, can seriously affect the value of slave labor in the United States, for 
centuries to come, will be considered visionary. But we must ask all such doubters 
to recollect, that commercial revolutions occur almost as suddenly, in this age, as 



56 Concluding Bemarks. 

political ones. The world has learned how to achieve great things in a short time. 
We western men have witnessed such wonders pass before our eyes, that we believe 
capital and labor, skill and enterprise, can accomplish any thing within the range of 
human power, and that what formerly required centuries for its consummation, can 
now be executed in months or years. Born in Ohio, when it was yet comparatively 
a wilderness, I, myself, have seen it rise to what it now is, and have also seen State 
after State called rapidly into existence, in the wilderness of the west, in less than 
half a century. And yet the sources of this prosperity and this progress are unex- 
hausted and inexhaustible. No limits can be set to this progress but the impassable 
barriers of the great Pacific. 

Give to Liberia intelligent and industrious emigrants, and she, too, will advance in 
prosperity and in greatness. The materials of such an emigration exist in the United 
States, and our colored men, generally, are only awaiting the evidences of the truth 
of what is said of Liberia. When convinced that it is not a trap to enslave them 
again, as they have been told, they will move with the heart of one man, as the Is- 
raelites of old removed from Egypt to Canaan. The sympathies of our colored men 
are with England and France. These nations possess their confidence more fully 
than Americans. England and France are both interested in blessing Africa with 
civilization. A formal invitation from these two governments, addressed to our free 
colored people, and asking them to emigrate to Liberia, under their protection and 
oatronage, would enlist tens of thousands to remove at once to the young Republic. 
These emigrants, being settled at suitable points along the coast, would greatly aid 
in checking the slave trade, -and thus, its risks being much increased, the British 
capital employed at present in that traffic, would be withdrawn from Brazil and 
transferred to Liberia. A large concentration of capital and labor in Africa, which 
are both practicable, would soon be felt, in the markets of the world, by the increased 
supply of free labor tropical products brought into competition with those of 
slave labor. When this event shall occur, as occur it will, a reduction of the value 
of slave labor must follow ; and this together with the rapidly increasing bulk of the 
now unwieldy mass of our slave population, must greatly hasten the period of 
final emancipation. 

Now, if the possession- of the sovereignty of the soil of tropical Africa, and the 
control of its products, be of such vast political and commercial importance to such 
governments as France and England, as their policy towards Africa, heretofore, so 
fully indicates; we would respectfully enquire of our colored people, whether their 
possession and control are not of equal importance and value to African men them- 
selves] And, if the monopoly of tropical products once secured to Englishmen an 
ascendancy among nations ; will not the same advantages be of equal importance to 
African men, and afford to them the means of rising into national greatness and na- 
tional glory] And, further, if Africa is of such importance to European nations, 
that they will expend millions of dollars to secure to themselves the advantages of its 
products and its commerce; what will posterity, what will the world say, of those of 
our African population, who refuse to receive such a rich inheritance, though offered 
to their acceptance as afree.gift? And, again, if the destruction of the slave trade 
and the abolition of slavery, be matters of such vast moral importance as to call for 
the united efforts of Christian men, throughout the world, to destroy them; and if 
these greatest of all modern moral enterprises, inferior only to our purely missionary 
efforts, cannot be accomplished, but by our Christian colored men forming themselves 
into a rampart around the African coast ; and if colored men can, by engaging in 
this great moral and religious movement, better their own condition and secure to 
themselves and their children, and ultimately to the millions of Africa, all the blessings 
of social, civil, and religious liberty; why should we not urge them to a fair and candid 
consideration of the question of returning to Africa as civilized and christianized men', 
to take peaceful possession of that ancient inheritance from which their uncivilized 
and pagan forefathers were forcibly torn ? 

But we shall not further wearyyour patience. We had designed presenting an 
argument for the success of the Republic of Liberia, based upon the innate moral 
principle existing within her, and growing out of the religious freedom secured to 
her citizens, and the ample means of religious instruction provided for her people. 
But we forbear. 



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